A student who faked terminal cancer to make her lecturer care for her and ultimately cost the teacher her marriage, home and job has been jailed for stalking and causing serious harm or distress.
Sally Retallack, 49, had her family life torn apart after Elisa Bianco duped her with false tales of illness and abuse, Truro Crown Court heard.
Miss Bianco, 22, met Mrs Retallack, a mother-of-four, on a college course and convinced her to let her move into her home by pretending she was abused by her parents and had just three months to live with a malignant tumour.
Mrs Rettallack gave up her job to care for Bianco and dropped off at hospital every day, only for the student to sit in a café in her pyjamas and dress herself in fake bandages.
She was so concerned about Miss Bianco that she spent £2,000 on fulfilling the fantasist’s wishlist of events and actions to complete before death.
Bianco was sentenced to two years and eight months in prison on Friday after admitting stalking and causing serious harm or distress, with the judge describing her actions as the “most extraordinary case” he had dealt with in a long time.
The court heard Bianco also drove a wedge between Mrs Rettallack and her husband, causing them to split.
She then posed as a man online to become Mrs Rettallack's love interest, before inventing a cancer diagnosis for the lover and killing him off before they could meet.
Mrs Rettallack wept in court as she read out a victim impact statement about how Miss Bianco had torn apart her family.
Sentencing the 22-year-old, Judge Christopher Harvey Clark QC told her: “It is a strange but very disturbing case. It is the most extraordinary case I have had to deal with in a long time.
“You were like an uninvited cuckoo fledging in the nest of a willow warbler – an unexpected offspring demanding to receive constant attention.
“Most chilling was the callous and cruel deception to create a fictitious hospital consultant. You heartlessly manipulated Mrs Retallack’s deepest emotions. No sentence will compensate her.”
