A travel agent faked  while defrauding more than 1,400 customers has been jailed at Durham Crown Court for nine years.Lyne Barlow, 39, was ‘riding the monster of deceit’ as she used her fake illness to deflect the avalanche of complaints from devastated families whose holidays failed to materialise.She was so determined to continue her charade that she even convinced her husband, Paul, and son and daughter she was battling cancer.Family members took her to hospital appointments, unaware that she was simply waiting inside before re-emerging claiming to have seen her consultant.To make her story more convincing, she cut off strands of her hair and scattered them across her pillow to make it look as though she was losing it to chemotherapy. Lyne Barlow, 39, claimed to her customers that she was covered by insurance and was a member of the trusted travel brand Association of British Travel Agents Barlow also claimed to be suffering from a terminal illness while she was selling the holidays, Durham Crown Court heard in October last yearWhen Barlow was arrested in 2020 she hobbled into the police station with her head swathed in a scarfe and walking with a stick.Custody photographs show a vast difference when she was re-arrested a year later and was forced to admit her ‘stage 3/4’ cancer had been a fabrication.Barlow stooped so low as to defraud her own mother, Susan Coleman, 64, out of £500,000 – part of which came from an insurance payout following the untimely death of her father, Barry.The rest was NHS ward sister Mrs Coleman’s retirement payout and savings, which Barlow told her she’d invested in a business venture which would make her mother rich.Barlow took over her grieving mother’s financial affairs as she struggled to come to terms with losing her husband in 2015.As she systematically emptied her mother’s accounts she intercepted her post to stop her getting bank statements. A redacted email exchange Lyne Barlow had with a customer about her pretend cancer Travel agent Lyne Barlow (left) arrives at Durham Crown Court to be sentenced for defrauding friends, family and hundreds of customers who bought holidays from her in a £2.6 million con Lyne Barlow claimed to her customers that she was covered by insurance and was a member of the trusted travel brand Association of British Travel Agents.

(Pictured left: Lyne Barlow)She also mocked up bank statement from Barclays which appeared to show that her mother’s money was in fact growing rather than disappearing.Barlow also took her mum away on lavish holidays along with her children, a boy and a girl.However it emerged the reason for this was, on some occasions, that Barlow knew through the intercepted post, that bailiffs were due to turn up at her mum’s house and EvDeN EvE naKliyAt she didn’t want her to find out.Mrs Coleman was left penniless by a daughter who used part of her money to set up Lyne Barlow Independent Travel in Stanley, County Durham.Barlow offered holidays at astonishing prices to drum up trade.Customers were able to snap up all inclusive trips to Dubai for just£500 and word quickly spread of her extraordinary bargains.The bubble quickly burst as families saw their hard earned money vanish on holidays that they never got to take.Some paid up to £5,500 to arrive at their destination and discover no funds had been received by the hotel so there were no rooms booked.Others arrived to discover they had no place on the return flight and were stranded abroad until they could find their own way back.Eventually a Facebook group was set up by furious victims of Barlow’s scam and an agreement reached to go to Durham Police en masse.There were so many calls to the force’s HQ that they had to be directed to an email address because emergency callers would have been unable to get through.In total Barlow could be proven to have defrauded family, friends and customers out of £1.2m, but investigators believe the total sum she gained over a period of five years from 2015 to 2020 was £2.6m.Barlow admitted theft, 10 counts of fraud and possessing criminal property at Durham Crown Court and was jailed for nine years.Judge Joanne Kidd told her: ‘You have presented yourself to those who knew you as a charming an engaging woman.’You are clearly a woman with significant intellectual ability but you also have an extraordinary talent for dishonesty. Her first victims were family and friends and she used their savings before setting up an independent travel agency, in which she fraudulently sold holidays, reporting them to be ATOL and ABTA protected, the force said.

(Pictured: stock image of a beach)’You mercilessly abused the trust of your nearest and dearest in their darkest hours and set about targeting other vulnerable people of your acquaintance who trusted you in order to satisfy your relatively lavish lifestyle.’This involved lavish holidays, an expensive car and designer goods.’The