New blog link added

I've added a new blog link to the sidebar - Benefits Culture, sub-titled life from the margins.

This is not because I agree with everything there. But too often the blogosphere is a dialogue of the deaf, with no conversation between people of different views. It's no good just staying in our boxes.

The blog aims to discuss what life is really like for people who are part of Britain's "benefits culture". Read, ponder, and sometimes disagree :)

Benefit cheat's curfew lifted for trip away

The commenter on the previous post was right - Kelly Westgate has had her six-week curfew lifted just a week later, for a long weekend away.

Villagers have been left fuming by her treatment, claiming it sent out a message that punishments would not be enforced.

But the ruling has been defended, with justice officials explaining the 28-year-old had arranged to take her children to a dance championship prior to her sentencing hearing.

More

htp Dave

Jail for £17k benefit fraud

David Griffiths, from Hixon near Stafford, received just over £10,600 in housing and council tax benefit between August 2006 and December last year by claiming to be the only person living in his home. He also got more than £7,000 in income support.

But he was actually living with a partner.

Cannock Magistrates' Court handed the defendant an eight-week prison sentence, but said it would have been longer if he had not entered an early guilty plea.

Goa death mother on benefit fraud charge

Fiona MacKeown, the mother of a British teenager whose body was found on a beach in Goa, has been charged with falsely claiming £51,401 in income support while failing to declare other income, reports the BBC.

The charge relates to the period February 2005 to March 2008 and includes the time when Ms MacKeown had taken a six-month family holiday with Scarlett to Goa.

She is due before Barnstaple magistrates on 3 December.

Light sentences for Chorley benefit thieves

Darren Bound pleaded guilty to falsely claiming more than £5,000 in benefits.

A Chorley Council investigation officer contacted him about another claimant who was under investigation. Bound let it slip that the claimant was a work colleague ... but he himself was receiving benefits on the basis that he was unemployed.

Although he tried to cover his tracks, a quick call to his employer confirmed that he had been in work for four months. He was fined £195 and ordered to pay £100 costs and £15 victim surcharge. "Steps are being taken to recover the overpaid benefits in full."

With this light sentence South Ribble magistrates are insulting taxpayers.

In a separate case a Croston woman has pleaded guilty to falsely claiming more than £2,500 in housing and council tax benefit. She failed to tell Chorley Council that she was receiving Tax Credits. Council investigators found out about the deception following a benefit data matching exercise.

She was given a 12 month conditional discharge and ordered to pay £75 costs.

Another non-punishment.

And in this computer age, why do we still rely on claimants to tell paying agencies what money they are receiving from other parts of government when the data is already on government computers?

We lose £3.5bn in benefit fraud each year. The amounts are huge, the precaution is basic. Yet the government does not put these basic safeguards in place.

"Single" benefit claimant lived with partner

Joanne Andrews, from St Leonards, claimed income support, housing and council tax benefit as a single parent but had failed to tell the relevant authorities that she lived with her partner.

Andrews admitted the charges at Hastings Magistrates Court. The court heard she had claimed £5,506 in benefits.

Magistrates handed down a 12 month community order to the benefit thief which means she will have to carry out 60 hours of unpaid work. She was also ordered to repay the benefit and pay costs of £250.

Magistrates cop out of proper sentence

Wandsworth Council report this case on their site but they should be disappointed by the sentence - and the magistrates' reasoning.

A benefit cheat has been prosecuted for fiddling a housing benefit claim after council fraud investigators discovered she had a bank account with £50,000 sitting in it.

Maxine Dowdie of Barringer Square, Tooting, pleaded guilty to one charge of deception when she appeared at South Western magistrates court on Friday.

The court heard that Ms Dowdie inherited £50,000 in cash following the death of a relative but omitted to tell benefits officials about the windfall.

She carried on claiming benefits and as a result fraudulently obtained £7,269 from the public purse. The deception came to light as a result of information sharing by government agencies.

As a result of her guilty plea and in the light of her paying back virtually all the money she'd swindled from taxpayers, magistrates decided not to impose a custodial sentence or a community based punishment and instead fined her £500 and ordered her to pay £750 towards the council's prosecution costs.

Housing spokesman Cllr Martin D Johnson said: "If people think they can get away with claiming benefits whilst concealing their incomes or savings, then they need to think again.

"Our investigators are actively looking for fraudsters and they have rich sources of information to help them catch those fiddling the system.

"We get lots of calls from friends, neighbours and even relatives who have absolutely no sympathy for benefit scroungers. We also share lots of information with other public bodies, like hospitals, schools and the police, so even though you may have covered your tracks in one area, another organisation will have the information that catches you out.

"Any claim made against the public purse is vigorously checked and double-checked by the council’s benefit investigators and audit team to ensure that taxpayers are not ripped off.

"These checks are carried out long after a claim is first made – often months or even years later to make sure that people claiming help and support from the public purse are still entitled to it.

"People who decide to cheat the benefits system should be under no illusion about what will happen. They will get caught, they will get a criminal record, they will have to pay the money back and they could end up in jail."

Inconsistent sentences at Craigavon

Four people were convicted at Craigavon Magistrates' Court on 9 November for claiming benefits they were not entitled to.

One person was given a £150 fine and ordered to pay £32 court costs for wrongful encashment of Jobseekers Allowance totalling £87.

Another was given a £50 fine and ordered to pay £76 court costs for wrongful encashment of Income Support totalling £145.

A third was given six months imprisonment suspended for two years and ordered to pay £34 court costs for failing to declare employment while claiming Income Support, Carers Allowance and Housing Benefit totalling £5,600.

And the fourth was given four months imprisonment suspended for two years and ordered to pay £74 court costs for failing to declare employment while claiming Income Support and Housing Benefit totalling £14,161.

All are also required to repay the money they wrongfully obtained to the Social Security Agency.

Unconditional welfare is morally corrupting

Cradle to grave welfare support inevitably breeds cases like the Smith family. This is not to do with marginal rates of tax, these are not people who want to work if it will pay. They want to live off the working population.

A New Zealand commentator uses the good phrase "learned helplessness".

Just a curfew for £20k benefit thief

Terence Low, an ex-serviceman from Silloth, falsely claimed £20,509 in housing and council tax support over a five-year period by lying about his two pensions. He was sentenced to a four-month curfew order. Yes, that's it.

He failed to declare both an army pension and an occupational pension from the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. The army pension was discovered by the National Fraud Initiative in March 2009. Investigations showed it had started in December 1976 and was still being paid into a bank account Low had not declared - so why did the data matching take so long?

Copies of bank statements also showed he was also receiving a second pension from the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority. Data matching hadn't picked this up.

Low agreed to pay the money back at a rate of £200 a month. His curfew order requires him to stay at home seven days a week between the hours of 9pm and 7am.