THE widower of a terminally ill woman deceived by a con artist has branded the fantasist "evil".

Gregory Murray, 59, was married to Angela for 40 years and cared for her for the last four years of her life as she struggled with a rare dry fibrosis of the lungs.

She was aged 59 when she died on October 31 last year, after 12 months of deception by Julie Higgins, 54, who falsely claimed to be a surgeon at Great Ormond Street Hospital and said she would find Mrs Murray lungs for a transplant operation.

Speaking from their home in Swanage, Mr Murray said: "To put my wife through what she put her through, I've never met someone so evil.

"You see things on TV and you think how can people be so stupid, but if someone gives you that little bit of hope you grasp at it.

"When Angela found out what Julie had done she said to me how can a woman do that to someone who is terminally ill.

"After she found out her health deteriorated rapidly. Before then she said she was going to fight it but after that she lost hope. It was only a month later she died in my arms."

Mr Murray, a railway worker, explained that Higgins and his wife went to the same hair salon - Inspire of Wimborne Road, Poole - and the two were introduced by owner Jackie Elvin, who had also been taken in by Higgins.

He said Higgins was exposed after spinning one lie too many - about being raped while apparently carrying out aid work in Aleppo.

He said: "She said she was going out there to help the children caught up in the war.

"She told Angela that when she got back she would give her one of her lungs.

"One day I got home and Angela was very upset. She said Julie had been raped and was in intensive care.

"I just didn't buy it and I got a call from the hairdresser Jackie saying she thought Julie was a fraud because a customer's brother was a marine out there and when he was told the story he said it was a load of crap."

Higgins, of Spruce Close, Poole, claimed she shaved her head to make the children she operated on feel comfortable when they came around without their hair.

She said she knew the Royal family through her work at Great Ormond Street, and had attended the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge.

She has admitted one count of fraud by false representation and another of impersonating a doctor at Dorset Magistrates Court and is due to be sentenced at Bournemouth Crown Court later this month.