A PENSIONER who got her own back when she was dumped by her boyfriend – by taking out credit cards in his name – has been ordered to pay compensation of just £1.

A special investigation was made into the financial affairs of Pamela Carlton Tills but it was found she had no money.

Mr Recorder Philip Heywood made an order under The Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA) that Tills had benefited from crime to the tune of £11,714.

But as there were no recoverable assets, he made an order that a nominal £1 be confiscated from her.

The judge gave her seven days to pay her £1 and said if she did not pay she would have to serve seven days imprisonment.

However, the purpose of the order is to have it hanging over her head.

If a defendant subject to a POCA order comes into money – for example by winning the lottery – then the prosecution can reclaim the remainder.

At an earlier hearing, Mold Crown Court heard how she had wanted the relationship to continue and also wanted to keep up the lifestyle she had enjoyed.

So without her boyfriend knowing, she got cards in his name and went on a £6,000 shopping spree.

An investigation showed she had also done the same thing to other people over a seven year period.

The 64-year-old con woman even took out credit in her dead aunt’s name.

In June, she admitted 11 counts of deception and asked for 117 similar offences to be taken into consideration.

But Tills, at the time of Broughton but now living in Coniston Road in Chester, was ordered to do 200 hours unpaid work.

It was accepted by the prosecution that while she had taken out loans and credit cards in false names, she was actually meeting the repayments.

Judge Dafydd Hughes told her at the time that her conduct between 1998 and 2005 represented ‘criminality of a most serious nature’.

Police were alerted in July last year by Edward Burn, who said he had lived with Tills at her home in Broughton from 2003 to the beginning of 2005, when the relationship ended.

But 18 months later he started to receive correspondence about a Virgin credit card in his name that he knew nothing about which had run up a £6,000 bill ‘by fairly substantial retail spending’.

John Wyn Williams, defending, said Tills had no relevant previous convictions.

His client had a responsible job earning £1,200 a month and she was meeting the repayments.