Bizarre new twist in the trial of NSW cancer faker and mother of six, Elle Edmunds.

The case of cancer fraud, Elle Edmunds from the Central Coast has always been overshadowed by the large-scale deception allegedly carried out by Belle Gibson. After all, Edmunds only made a little over $2000 from her scam, compared to the hundreds of thousands allegedly collected by Belle Gibson.

Edmunds was sentenced in Belmont Local Court, south of Newcastle yesterday. She pleaded guilty in March to two counts of obtaining financial advantage by deception.

The judge sentenced Edmunds to two concurrent 18 month good behaviour bonds – but not before making findings about who was really behind Elle Edmunds’ scam.

Edmunds claims that she tricked people into believing that she had cancer because she was being abused by her ex-partner, John Heagney. Edmunds previously told the court: “He was in on it just as much as me. He was the one who instigated it…It was his documentation, doctors. It was his plan. I went through with it because I was in fear.”

“He tried to kill me, many a time.”

The judge accepted that story, saying that Edmunds had acted under pressure from her former partner and had been a victim of high level domestic violence. She also ordered that Edmunds undergo treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Edmond's ex-fiance Heagney had previously painted himself as the victim of Edmond's scam.

"All she wanted to do was get married before she died," John Heagney previously told news outlets. "We planned our wedding and her funeral at the same time."

“We were picking out the songs she wanted at the funeral and the kind of flowers she wanted”.

He said that he believed his fiancée, Edmunds, was desperately sick. He was caring for her every day, pushing her in a wheelchair. “She was in bed for seven months, her hair started falling out.”

Then, he says, he realised that she was dosing herself with chemotherapy drugs that she bought online. Heagney was outspoken outside the court last year, saying that this deception has “wrecked [his] life”: “I go to a psychologist fortnightly and a GP weekly.’’

Heagney's story is at odds with the one apparently accepted by the court yesterday - that he was abusing Edmond and apparently the one behind Edmond's cancer scam.

That scam was certainly deeply detailed in its execution.

In 2014, Elizabeth “Elle” Edmunds, 31, told people she had ovarian cancer (which later spread to her lungs). She shaved her head and set up a fundraising page. The mother of six apparently told family and friends that her cancer was untreatable and that she had been given three years to live.

Read more about it here: A vile scam exposed after a mother of 6 pretends to be dying of ovarian cancer.

She posted regular updates to thousands of followers on the “Help For Elle” Facebook page, many of whom donated generously. Through her own fundraising efforts and those of others she allegedly raised the grand sum of $2500 ($1780 was raised through a crowd-funding website, while another woman raised $800 through a charity walk).

Her deception fell through in October 2014 when someone became suspicious and reported her to police. Edmonds has previously said she believed it was her ex-partner who went to the police with her crimes.

When Edmunds spoke to the Women’s Day, she made no mention of family violence and her fiance's role in her deception. She told the magazine she couldn’t explain why she invented the cancer. She thought perhaps that she had a breakdown brought on by the trauma of losing a newborn baby, seven years earlier.

She told the Woman’s Day that she was very sorry: “I feel so bad for the people raising money. I just want to pay everyone back and I promise I’m going to do that. I plan to make contact with each and every person who gave me money and make this right.”

Even with the bizarre new twist in this already-extraordinary case, it's hard not to feel that Edmunds has been treated more harshly by the justice system than Belle Gibson.

Belle Gibson also pretended to have cancer. Gibson earned a lot more from her deception than Elle Edmunds (who only allegedly cracked $2500). Belle’s ‘victims’ are certainly more numerous. And while Woman’s Day reports that Edmunds has undertaken to repay her donations, Gibson certainly hasn’t given that indication. While Elle has apologised, Belle hasn’t seemed interested in doing the same.

Just a month ago, Victoria Police finally ruled out that they would pursue Gibson for criminal charges, despite her much larger-scale deception and financial advantage.

Yesterday, after a 14-month-long investigation, Consumer Affairs Victoria has sought leave to pursue Gibson in the Federal Court over her successful Whole Pantry app, which was developed off the back of her fictitious cancer diagnosis.

The director of Consumer Affairs Victoria, Simon Cohen, has said they will be pursuing legal action against Gibson’s now liquidated company, Inkerman Road Nominees.

“This is an important step in ensuring that consumers receive only verified information and are not deceived, particularly where serious matters of health and medical treatment are concerned,” he said in a statement.

If leave is granted, Gibson faces more than $1 million in penalties for alleged fraud, and profiting off her imaginary cancer.

The publishers of the Whole Pantry book, Penguin Australia also faces a hefty fine.

An agreement has been made for the company to make a $30,000 donation to the Victorian Consumer Law fund for failing to fact-check Gibson's cancer claims before the book was retailed.

Gibson's app was one of the most successful of its kind in 2013, having reached over 300,000 downloads before being ripped from the market in disgrace.

Sold at $3.79 per download, it is estimated that the app's revenue would have exceed AUD$1 million. Gibson and her app were so wildly popular that Apple exclusively flew her to Silicon Valley as one of first online influencers to first demo the tech giant's watch.