Adelaide mum Michelle Bodzsar forced her son, 6, to take pseudo medication, shaved his head and made him wear an eyepatch while lying that he had cancer as she pocketed thousands in donations
An “attention-seeking” mum who secured thousands in donations after faking her six-year-old son’s cancer has been thrown into prison.
Michelle Bodzsar tricked her loved ones and community into believing that her young boy had eye cancer and pocketed $11,500 AUD (£6,000) in the process. Her son had hurt his eye after a trampoline fall, in September 2024, but an ophthalmologist carried out tests and cleared the boy.
Despite this, the mum, from Adelaide, Australia, told her husband, Ben Miller, their child had cancer and claimed a scan revealed three tumours on his optic nerve. She lied that the boy needed eight rounds of radiotherapy and even posted pictures of her six-year-old online with a shaved head while asking for donations.
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The mum had sent a message to a group of parents on Facebook, on November 20, 2024, lying about her son’s condition. Judge Geraldine Davison said: “By doing so you sought to engage all the parents within that group and their families and perpetrated the lie that your son had cancer.”
Bodzsar had even forced her son to take pseudo medication daily, as the judge said: “It is a form of child maltreatment and child abuse.” The son often turned up to school events in a wheelchair and the mum had shaved his head, eyebrows and put bandages on him, the court heard.
The mother also made the six-year-old wear an eye patch, according to Adelaide Now. Bodzsar also gave her son pseudo medication, forcing him to take it “even when he clearly did not want to,” the judge said.
Mr Miller, in a statement read to the court last month, said he only discovered his son did not have cancer when he was arrested by police. Charges against the dad were dropped in May 2025, with the judge saying he had “absolutely no idea what was going on.”
In his statement, Mr Miller said: “I had complete trust in you as my wife and never doubted you … now I feel like a pawn in a chess game, used and thrown aside.” Outside the court, Mr Miller said that “no sentence will ever justify what was done to my children”.
“Your crimes have resulted in him losing his job, his career, and being unable to get work because he was on home detention, and no contact with his children for almost seven months,” the judge told Bdzsar. Their son was described as now being “nagry and sad for no apparent reason”, with the judge adding that the pair’s daughter also suffered abandonment anxiety and has been deeply impacted.
The court also heard of the impact on the local school community which felt shocked, betrayed and angry, as well as ashamed and embarrassed. The judge said: “They feel shame for being naive and embarrassed for not spotting the lies earlier.”
Judge Davison said she failed to accept the “root cause of this offending” was “financial difficulties”. The judge added: “I do not accept that… your offending is far more cruel and manipulative… It was designed as an attention-seeking device.”
Bodzsar was sentenced to four years, three months and 20 days, with a non-parole period of two years and four months. The sentence was backdated to December 12, 2024, so the mother will be eligible for parole in a year.
