Frenchman lived with dead mother to keep pension

19 September 2005

MARSEILLE: A Frenchman in his sixties lived for five years with the body of his dead mother to keep receiving her 700 euros monthly pension, judicial sources said.

The man, a hospital morgue worker, is to be prosecuted for fraud and concealing a death on Saturday after police found the corpse in a two-room apartment in the city centre in piles of rubbish.

Police went to the flat because of unpaid rent and other bills. The man had imitated an old woman's voice to deceive the social services.

His mother had died of natural causes at the age of 94.