Christopher Phillips has been jailed after keeping the body of his mother in a chest freezer at their home in south Wales for nearly three years while collecting more than £78,000 in pension and benefit payments made in her name.

Phillips, 60, was sentenced to two years and four months in prison at Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court after admitting preventing the lawful and decent burial of his mother, Sylvia Phillips, and two counts of fraud.

The court heard that Sylvia Phillips was 89 when she died on 8 March 2023.

Her son bought a chest freezer shortly after her death and kept her body inside it in the living room of the house they shared in Porthcawl.

Police found the body in February 2026 after medical professionals raised concerns because they had not seen her for years despite her continuing prescriptions and previous contact with the practice.

When officers first asked Phillips where his mother was, he said she was in London with relatives.

He could not provide details of those relatives or where they lived.

Officers then searched the property, where they noticed flowers on top of a freezer and found Sylvia Phillips’s body inside.

The court heard that her body was covered with a leopard-print throw and was found with roses and a birthday card bearing the message, “To Mum, from Christopher and Tina,” referring to the family dog.

The details illustrated the unusual mixture of concealment and attachment at the centre of the case, but they did not reduce the seriousness of the offences.

Phillips had been his mother’s main carer since 2008 and had left work to care for her as her health declined.

His lawyer said he had been adopted by Sylvia Phillips when he was two and that the pair had been exceptionally close.

A psychiatrist found that he had been suffering from prolonged grief disorder, with persistent longing for his mother, social withdrawal and difficulty accepting her death.

His defence said he told police that he did not want to let her go.

The court heard that he spoke to her as if she were alive, discussing television programmes and horse racing, and sometimes sat near the freezer.

Prosecutors argued that whatever his emotional state, Phillips had made a deliberate decision to conceal the death and continue receiving money that should have stopped when it was reported.

The payments totalled £78,190.92. They included state pension, pension credit, attendance allowance, winter fuel payments, cost-of-living support and housing benefit.

Phillips also continued to collect his mother’s prescriptions and repeatedly told medical staff that she did not want appointments or tests.

Judge Tracey Lloyd-Clarke said Sylvia Phillips had suffered the indignity of being stored in a freezer for years, while her son gained financially from her unreported death.

The length of the deception and the continuing access to her money aggravated the offending.

Phillips will become eligible for release on licence after serving 40% of his custodial sentence.

A timetable has also been set for confiscation proceedings to determine whether money can be recovered.

A post-mortem examination did not establish Sylvia Phillips’s cause of death, and police said they found no physical circumstances suggesting suspicious death.

An inquest will examine the outstanding questions surrounding her death, while the criminal case has established how it was concealed afterward.