FOR 30 years Nina Raymont lived a double life around the world after stealing the identity of a mental health patient while on the run from drug dealing allegations.

Even the children of “Sandra Forshaw” had no idea of who their mother really was and yesterday the 58-year-old’s full extraordinary web of deceit was revealed.

Raymont’s drug-filled flat in Wood Farm, Oxford, was raided by police in 1982, but she skipped police bail and then suffered a breakdown, ending up in an Essex mental hospital after being found wandering naked in the street.

Unable to ascertain her identity, doctors put her in a room with fellow patient Sandra Forshaw, who would become her first unsuspecting victim.

On her release from the hospital, Raymont assumed her former room-mate’s identity and took out a passport in her name.

She travelled first to Europe and then to the United States and in 1995 records show her appearance in Guatemala. Here Raymont married a local man and they had a daughter named Dorsha and adopted a son called Alex.

In February 2004, Raymont’s fraudulent passport was re-issued in the married name of Sandra Sommers.

Hounded out amid a crumbling marriage, Raymont returned to Britain in 2009 and found her original birth certificate and gained a passport in her real name.

Now in possession of two seemingly genuine passports, Raymont turned to benefit fraud while working as a volunteer for Oxford’s Helen and Douglas House hospice.

She gained a National Insurance number in Sandra Forshaw’s name in the autumn of 2009 and, realising her assumed identity made her older than she was, applied for pension credits.

In all she netted £13,397.06 in these credits backdated from June 2009 until she was rumbled in June 2011.

Not content with that, Raymont used her real identity to apply to Oxford City Council for housing benefit, raking in £17,367.72p.

When council investigations led to police raiding her home in Lime Walk, Headington, last summer, the deceit continued.

Officers found counterfeit traveller’s cheques, Swiss Francs, American Dollars and bank accounts in the surnames Forshaw, Sommers and Hemmasi, a name she gave to police back in 1982 when first arrested.

There were also birth and death certificates in the name of Doreen Walker and an application for a European health card in the name of Jean Walker.

Completing the stash was the will of the real Sandra Forshaw’s deceased father and their whole family tree.

Brought in front of Oxford magistrates on June 1 last year, Raymont’s lies continued when she swore on oath that she was Sandra Forshaw.

At Oxford Crown Court yesterday , Raymont was given a suspended jail sentence having admitted three counts of fraud, one count of perjury and two charges of obtaining property by deception.

Defence barrister Judith McCullough said her client was “genuinely remorseful” and had suffered a series of abusive relationships and committed the original deception in a fragile mental state.

Judge Gordon Risius said he was able to take an “exceptional” course in passing a 12-month sentence, suspended for two years, with 250 hours’ unpaid work.