Woman jailed for fooling her partner with fake pregnancy

A woman has been jailed after tricking her partner into twice believing she was pregnant, with her lies only discovered when she turned up to a maternity ward wearing a fake pregnancy bump.

- Hannah Al-Othman

Libby Vernon was sentenced to six months in prison at Workington magistrates court in Cumbria, having previously pleaded guilty to 10 charges relating to sending false communications.

Pamela Fee, for the prosecution, said Vernon, 23, from Staffordshire, had met her former partner online and told him she was pregnant by an abusive ex-boyfriend. Vernon also told him "she was a partner in a nursery business" and "owned her own home via a mortgage - none of that was true", Fee told the court.

Vernon had said she was pregnant with twins, and the then couple agreed to raise the babies together, the court heard. She later told her partner that one of the babies had died. Fee told the court the couple had "discussed the loss and they grieved together".

Fee said Vernon had "told him the other baby was still healthy" and claimed she had a rare condition where she had two uteruses.

In December 2023 Vernon sent him a picture of a baby wearing a white hat with the words: "Someone wants to meet you," later also sending him photographs of a baby in a car seat and in a cot.

While on a call with her then partner, he could see the cot but not the baby. He heard Vernon say: "Athena", the name of the supposed infant.