Husband Of False Widow Spider ‘Still Alive’, Court Told

A CLAIMS court in Waterford today has heard that a false widow spider who had claimed €1.2mn in compensation from the loss of her husband in a web construction accident last year had committed fraud, after investigators found her husband alive and well under a house roof in the city centre.

A solicitor for the false widow spider who cannot be named over legal reasons said his client had already spent the money in the last 12 months and could not repay Liberty Insurance, but asked the judge to be lenient on the spider as she has a history of mental health disorders, including depression and a bipolar condition that she is currently being treated for.

It is understood that a plot was formulated by the spider couple in late 2015 to fraudulently claim the money after staging the spider’s death.

“My client was desperate at the time and needed the money to buy her 674 children shoes for school,” solicitor Kevin Egan told the court, “besides, she’s a false widow spider for Christ sakes; the insurance company is partly to blame here for being so stupid”.

Since losing their jobs in the web building crash of 2007, the spider family felt they had little choice but to steal the money from their insurance provider to keep themselves alive.

Judge William Martin said he would take everything the defence said into account, but insisted that a mandatory 5 year sentence for the white collar crime would have to be handed down to the false widow spider, and that her partner would have to be thrown out the window immediately.