Pamela Gwinnett walked into Preston Crown Court in the same clothes she wore when she landed back in Britain. The BBC reported that the 63-year-old, who had spent 16 months on the run in Tenerife, was given an extra two months in jail for breaching bail. A Manchester Evening News report described her leopard print bomber jacket.
The extra term came on top of the six years she received last October for theft and fraud by abuse of position. A jury had convicted her, and Judge Michael Maher sentenced her in her absence. The case centred on Joan Green, 89, a retired accountant from Chorley, Lancashire, whose life savings Gwinnett took after becoming her carer. The court heard that Gwinnett controlled Ms Green’s finances and cut her off from her family. Ms Green died in November 2022.
The flight to Tenerife
Gwinnett boarded a plane in April 2025, about five hours after the court refused her request to loosen her bail terms. She had asked to scatter her brother’s ashes on the island. On April 2 the court had barred her from travelling abroad and ordered her to hand over her passports. One was returned to the authorities. She left on another.
“No evidence of a brother has ever been produced, much less that he passed away,” Judge Maher said. He called the flight “a deliberate and sustained attempted to evade justice.”
Her barrister, Rosalind Scott Bell, said Gwinnett left out of “fear and anxiety” and because of poor mental health, and had told her to apologise to the court. Scott Bell added that Gwinnett “was, and is, of the view that she is not guilty”. The judge was unmoved. “Frankly your apology carries no weight at all,” he said, and noted that her health problems had not stopped her travelling abroad.
Family reaction
Ms Green’s grandson, David Bolton, spoke outside court. “We are relieved,” he said. “It’s been a long time coming.” He said Gwinnett had never apologised, and he rejected the anxiety claim: “She wasn’t that anxious when she was swimming in pools and getting her nails done, eating in restaurants and bars in Tenerife.”
Earlier this year a Sky News crew confronted Gwinnett outside her seaside apartment on the island. She denied taking the money. “Did I heck take the money,” she told the channel.
At a Proceeds of Crime hearing she was ordered to repay £350,180 to Ms Green’s family, and property is understood to have been seized to recover it. Judge Maher thanked the Crown Prosecution Service in Lancashire, Greater Manchester Police and the National Crime Agency for securing her extradition.
Sources
- Fraudster Pamela Gwinnett who fled to Tenerife sentenced further
- Black Widow fraudster jailed after fleeing to Tenerife for 16 months
