Local data matching catches benefit fraudster

Janet Fletcher from Partington has been jailed for four months after pleading guilty to benefit fraud amounting to £43,266.

She failed to notify Trafford Council’s benefits department and the DWP that her partner had moved into the property, and she had been overpaid benefit between May 2004 and April 2008.

Council counter fraud officers were alerted to the matter following a data sharing exercise with a Trafford employer.

More benefit frauds

Irene Wellington from Maidenhead has been jailed for 20 weeks after illegally claiming £11,916 in benefits.

Beverley Seals from Ilkeston, a lollipop lady and brownie pack leader, claimed £4,382 council benefit after keeping quiet about her job, and was ordered to carry out 150 hours community work and pay £150 prosecution costs to the council.

James Smith from Birkdale, who claimed to have an 'enlarged heart', took more than £34,000 in disability benefits ... while running a scrapyard. He has been jailed for 10 months.

Aaron Hendricks, from Letchworth Garden City, claimed £2,161 in tax benefits from North Herts District Council (NHDC) he was not entitled to. He was fined £300 and ordered to pay £600 towards the council's costs and a £15 victim's surcharge.

By contrast a Leyland fraudster has been ordered to pay back £3,400 after using false papers to claim benefits. Lorraine McCallum claimed the cash between December, 2006 and October, 2007. He will be subjected to a 24-month supervision order - so hardly a punishment at all.

Saeed Delnavaz from Hanwell, who scammed more than £38,000 in housing benefits, has been jailed for a year and ordered to pay £2,500 costs. He had been fraudulently claiming benefits whilst living in a rented property in Ludlow Court, Park Road East, Acton, and renting out the property he bought in Hanwell in 2005 - as well as working as a deliveryman. He had also been receiving hundreds of pounds each week from his father in Iran to pay towards his general living expenses since 2004. The court did not accept Mr Delvanaz's repayment offer of £100 per month and a confiscation hearing has been set.

Light sentence for benefit cheat

Munir Ullah from Ashton under Lyne continued to claim benefits after getting £300,000 from the sale of his market stall. He was overpaid more than £6,300 over two-and-a-half years. He was fined £5,000 plus costs of £150. But Tameside council's deputy leader has called for a tougher sentence.

Sometimes with benefit cheat cases, and certainly with a case as serious as this, I feel magistrates ought to consider a custodial sentence or even send it to crown court for a judge to look at.

With all that money in the bank, this person must have known he was not entitled to benefits. He was stealing from the public purse, from people on benefits who genuinely need the money.

People convicted of benefit fraud should have to repay twice the amount, and should not be eligible for further benefits – including tax credits - until they have, using bailiffs if necessary. Benefit fraudsters who don't receive a custodial sentence should have to do unpaid work.

Proposed new sentencing guidelines for benefit fraud

Te Sentencing Guidelines Council has proposed new guidelines for fraud offences, including benefit fraud.

The consultation document is here - go to page 28 in your Adobe Reader, and look at the table two pages further on.

The consultation closes on 15 May.

Trivial sentences for blue badge frauds

We've looked before at blue badge fraud (click the label at the foot of the post). It's surprisingly widespread, and in London a disabled blue badge can save you from several thousand pounds worth of parking charges and congestion charge payments a year, as well as giving the opportunity to park in a disabled space.

Lambeth Council recently prosecuted 20 people for blue badge fraud. Total fines amounted to £3,800 and costs awarded to Lambeth Council totalled £3,105. That's an average fine of a pitiful £190.

Alfred Cutmore, a chauffeur from Sidcup in Kent, was found using a badge that later turned out to be stolen. Suspicions were aroused when Cutmore, from Langley Close, Sidcup, was spotted in Coin Street, Waterloo, using a badge that had had its expiry date tampered with.

He was interviewed under caution and later pleaded guilty to six charges of using a stolen and date altered badge, being fined a total of £300 and ordered to pay costs of £215.

In another case, Keshava Raghubeer of Oakdale Road SW16, was found to be using a blue badge previously owned by his father, who had died in 2006. Mr Raghubeer admitted using the badge to park in a disabled bay outside his Streatham home. He also pleaded guilty in court and was fined £250 and ordered to pay costs of £215.

Annette Richmond of Southwell Road, SE5, was also fined £500 after admitting altering the date on her deceased mother’s badge to extend its use. She was also ordered to pay costs of £115.

These petty fines will deter no one. It should be the invariable rule that the vehicle will be confiscated, and sold or crushed.

A thriving trade exists in stolen blue badges, which are usually obtained by breaking into disabled people’s cars. Lambeth Council operates a ‘White Badge’ scheme to combat this problem. The white badge allows holders to park in disabled bays in Lambeth overnight without having to display their blue badge. White badges show the vehicle registration number which means they are no use to anyone else and therefore are unlikely to be targeted by thieves.

The blue badge scheme is clearly wide open to abuse.

The moral corruption of the welfare state

This isn't legally a benefit fraud, but it shows there's something badly wrong with welfare provision. How many more are there like her?

She has lived on benefits since she left school, pregnant, at the age of 16.

Since then Ellen Morris has accumulated 13 children and an annual income from state handouts of nearly £28,000 a year.

Now that many of her brood have left home or reached their teens, Miss Morris could be contemplating a little part-time work. She might even be feeling a twinge of guilt at the money she's had from the taxpayer over the years.

Not a bit of it. Miss Morris, 39, wants more children - then the council will have to give her a six-bedroom house rent-free. She also says she needs to double her benefits to get by.

Should taxpayers be asked to fund her lifestyle? Vote here

"I'd like another couple of kids," she said. "Why not? It's not easy making the money stretch. They all want the latest gear and Nike trainers and I like Lacoste jumpers.

"Then there's my cigs. I smoke 40 a day and I like vodka and Cokes. You've got to have some pleasures in life."

They are not the only luxuries the family enjoy - in the front room is a new widescreen TV and a DVD player.

Miss Morris - who has been given a parenting order for not sending her children to school for three months - is also able to afford nights out twice a week.

When the Daily Mail called round to their three-bedroom terraced house in Barrowford, Lancashire, yesterday, a reporter was told she was still in bed and that they should come back at 3pm. When she eventually surfaced, swigging from a can of lager in front of some of her children, she insisted she could not be expected to spend all her time looking after them.

"If I stayed at home with that lot I'd go mental," she said. "But life is hard. I could do with a big lottery win.~"

Living with her in the house, which has a patch of mud for a front garden and dirt and graffiti smeared on the battered front door, are her youngest nine children - Liam, 16, Nicole, 15, Kieley, 13, Ryan, 11, Nathan, nine, Jordan, eight, Corey, seven, Leah, five, and Beckham, four.

The four eldest have left home - Zoe, 21, Jason, 20, Kieran, 18, and Aaron, 17, who has joined the Army. Five boys share one bedroom in three bunk beds while the girls have the other two - their mother sleeps on the settee in the front room.

All have the same father, labourer Tony McKenzie, 50, but he left when Beckham was born, and they are no longer in touch. Explaining the decision to name him after the football star, Miss Morris said: "I love Man United and Beckham is gorgeous. I bet he'd be honoured if he knew."

She now has a partner aged 28 and hopes to have more children, which will increase her hand-outs. Each week she gets £290 income support, £120 in child allowances, £40 council tax benefit and free school dinners worth £81 - an annual total of £27,612. This nearly £5,000 more than the average national salary.

But despite living rent and mortgagefree because she inherited the house from her grandmother, she is demanding that the local council gives her a bigger one.

"If I had a couple more children they'd have to find me something larger," she said. That would be good news for her long-suffering neighbours - last month she was fined £700 for 23 breaches of a noise abatement order by playing loud music. She also admits that none of her children has been to school since last November.

Miss Morris added: "People say I'm a scrounger, and even the rest of my family won't speak to me, but I just love kids."

No punishment for £70k fraud

A benefit cheat who pocketed more than £70,000 has been given 100 years to pay back the cash. For more than five years jobless Caroline Wilton ripped off taxpayers by claiming money she wasn't entitled to. But despite being found guilty of fraud she's only been ordered to repay just £14 a week....

And the single mum-of-three is only repaying the cash through benefits she still receives.

She claimed income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit on the basis she was a single parent supporting her three children, but she was living with their father and was also in full-time employment.

She received a 12-month suspended prison sentence as well as a three-month curfew, which means she will have to remain at her home between 9pm and 6am every day. The Judge said

The authorities probably tell me you should go straight to prison.

I won't take that step, primarily because it would have a very significant impact on your three children and your 20-year-old son.

How nice.

The paper adds that she has split up with her partner, so she now gets benefit legitimately.

The authorities are restricted in what they can claw back from benefit fraudsters and there is no rule to prevent a person who has been convicted of benefit fraud from claiming again if it is a legitimate claim.

Tony Nicholas, Portsmouth City Council's head of revenue and benefits, said: 'We always assess a resident's ability to pay when recovering debt but we want to recover overpayments like this as quickly as possibly.

'But government regulations restrict the rate at which we can recover the overpayments and, even in the case of benefit fraud, the maximum we can claim back is £12 per week.'

At court, councils and the Department for Work and Pensions can begin confiscation proceedings against defendants if they have significant cash or assets that can be seized.

But this does not normally happen when a defendant is on benefits.

A spokesperson from the DWP added: 'We will make sure they pay back the money they have stolen and seek to ensure any proceeds from their crime are confiscated, too.

'Where confiscation does not happen the debt will remain as outstanding and we will seek to recover the debt as an individual's circumstances change.'

Back in the real world, no one will think this is appropriate. Commenters on the paper's website ask why taxpayers cannot put in bailiffs to recover at least some of the money. That could certainly happen for a private debt.

But she has effectively got away with it.

£70k benefit fraudsters avoid jail

This was a deliberate, large long term fraud against taxpayers. But the couple avoid jail ... because they have young children. They should have been jailed one at a time.

A couple from Lower Earley who conned the council out of more than £70,000 in benefits over two years have escaped a jail sentence so they could look after their young children.

Debra Phillips, 40, and Phillip Seaward, 39, of Chatteris Way, were handed suspended sentences and unpaid work orders at Reading Crown Court.

Phillips had been illegally claiming housing benefit, council tax benefit and income support by telling Wokingham Borough Council she was a single parent renting a property from her landlord Seaward, but the pair are in fact married and living as a family.

Wokingham Borough Council investigators also found Seaward was running his own mini coach company and that the couple had been using the illegally claimed benefits to pay their mortgage.

Sentencing the pair on Thursday, February 12, Judge John Wood said: “This was a calculated deception of the authorities from day one.

“If you did not have young children you would be walking down those steps and imprisoned for 18 months each.”

Phillips and Seaward both admitted dishonestly making false representations with a view to obtaining housing benefit, council tax benefit and income support from July 2005 to September 2007.

The pair stole £31,941.50 in housing benefit, £2,627.43 in council tax benefit and £37,556.25 in income support.

Seaward also admitted dishonestly allowing documentation to be produced which he knew to be false.

They were sentenced to 51 weeks, suspended for two years, and were ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work.

They are also paying back the money stolen from taxpayers to the council.

htp Dave

More benefit frauds

Robert Dawkins from Gamlingay failed to disclose that he had started work and was overpaid more than £2,500 in benefits. He was told to repay it in full and fined £200, and ordered to pay costs of £401.20 as well as a £15 victim surcharge.

Stephen Keating, from Herne Bay, failed to notify the council that he had vacated a property in Canterbury in December 2007, resulting in an overpayment of housing benefit of £1,332. He was sentenced to 100 hours community punishment order, given a 12-month supervision order and told to pay the city council £100 in costs.

Benefit fraud pair's £100k yacht

A couple claiming benefits who sailed part way around the world on a £100,000 yacht have been warned they face jail.

Shashi Bacheta from Swansea had claimed she was so ill she had trouble getting out of bed, but investigators said she would go scuba diving. She admitted 16 counts relating to benefit fraud worth about £40,000 and Jeffrey Cole admitted four charges worth some £12,000. They will be sentenced next month at Swansea Crown Court.

He pretended to be her landlord when they were in fact living together, the court heard. At various times between October 2002 and January 2008 she claimed housing benefit, council tax relief, income support and disability living allowances. She had claimed to be unemployed and failed to declare she was living with Cole at his home in the Sketty area of the city or declare any of his assets, including his yacht.

Two incapacity benefit fraudsters

Fiona McEvoy, from the Taxpayers Alliance, said: “It’s completely despicable that these two charlatans have swindled taxpayers out of thousands of pounds.

“Even though the money is due to be returned, repayment is sure to be on their terms and will incur all sorts of administration costs payable from the public purse. That’s on top of what it’s already cost to investigate this crime.

“In this case the offenders were caught out, but there’s little doubt that hard-working taxpayers are being hit for millions upon millions of pounds by such thieves.”

Benefit fraudster jailed

Cheryl Edwards from Dartford has been jailed for 12 months after falsely claiming £65,000 in benefits between July 2002 and April 2007. She told the authorities she was living as a single parent despite getting married in 2002. She was ordered to serve six months of her sentence in jail and to spend six months on licence.

Public attitudes to surveillance

64% of 300 people surveyed for the New Local Government Network said that it is very appropriate for councils to use directed surveillance to tackle drug dealing, whilst 62% felt it was very appropriate for organised crime; 59% for theft and 50% for benefit fraud.

Meanwhile, Worcestershire County Council have decided to oppose the Government’s controversial multi-billion-pound ID card scheme “at every possible stage”.

Light sentences for benefit fraud

Tracy Lally from Colne, who cheated the state out of benefits totalling £8,257, has been placed under curfew. She had claimed income support for herself and her children since 1998, but her partner, who had occasional work, had moved into her home in August 2007, making her original claim invalid. Magistrates gave her an eight week curfew, between Sundays and Fridays, between 8pm and 7am, and ordered her to pay £75 costs. Mr Benson has now lost his employment and claims benefits on behalf of the family as a whole.

Diane Warner, from Wendover, received a benefit overpayment of £5,342 after failing to declare she was in employment. She was sentenced to a two year conditional discharge.

James Byrne, also of Wendover, failed to disclose that he had savings in excess of the £16,000 capital limit for claiming means tested benefits and was overpaid £4,427 in benefits. He was fined £495 and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £100.

More benefit frauds

Shaun Regan, from Woodstock, has admitted wrongly obtaining £387 of housing benefit. Kay Williams, from Tackley, pleaded guilty to making false representations to claim £2,961 housing and council tax benefit. Both were given a 12-month community punishment orders, and made to pay £75 costs. Ms Regan was also given 100 hours of unpaid work.

Jonathan Hall, a key member of Team GB's successful wheelchair basketball side in the Beijing paralympics, sold and bought cars while receiving disability allowances. He has 28 days to pay back the fraudulently claimed £6,647 or go to prison for three months. He was also fined £750 and ordered to pay £500 in costs.

Jacqueline Benson, from Uppingham, claimed benefits and paid reduced council tax as a single person even though her daughter and her fiancé had moved into her home. She received a six month community service order for fraudulently obtaining £3,500.

Danielle Bramley from Redditch has been fined £200 after pleading guilty to benefit fraud. She failed to notify the Council and the DWP that her partner was living with her. She had continued to claim income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit as a lone parent, which resulted in her being overpaid £1,602 in benefits.

Why blog on benefit fraud?

Why blog on benefit fraud? There are plenty of issues out there such as the broken society, or saving the planet.

They're well covered in the blogosphere. Benefit fraud isn't.

Of course we can name other egregious spongers on the state besides the benefit fraudsters we cover. Jacqui Smith and Alistair Darling should know better. And of course they do.

Benefit fraud is big bucks. The government admits to an annual £800m. The media can't even get that right. The BBC and the Daily Mail have been quoting figures of £400m or £440m. So we aim to combat basic ignorance. Numbers appear one day in public documents and are forgotten the next.

But as this blog has regularly shown, the true benefit fraud total is at least £2bn a year. That's more than 10% of state spending on transport, or industry and agriculture. Which is big money, especially when state debt is ballooning out of control and the talk is of big cuts in state spending being needed.

Critics of the welfare state stress the debilitating effect of welfare. Karen Matthews is one who existed on it. Another beneficiary is Sian Robbins, a single mother of 17 who is now expecting triplets after having unprotected sex with her new boyfriend. She lives on benefits and says of her pregnancy 'It's not got anything to do with anyone else'. That's as long as you can support the brood you're producing, dear.

Now there's no suggestion that Sian is a benefit fraudster. But she's a symbol of the expectation that the state will provide, whatever you do. There is no personal responsibility to support your own family. Indeed, her 18 year old boyfriend says

She loves being a mum - even if one baby does have a problem we'll still love them. Sian wants me to be at home with her until the babies are older, so I'll be signing on.

Thus is the scope of the welfare state condemned.

This blog does not seek to range so widely. All but the most spectacular reports of benefit fraud are local, and we aim to pull them together. We also look at enforcement. It is slow, expensive and patchy. Ministers keep repeating how successful it is, so things must be bad.

Punishments for benefit fraud are illogical and too often nominal, as the local reports show. The enforcement apparatus will never be able to deal with the sheer volume of benefit fraud, so offending has to be damped down at source. One way is to make sentencing meaningful and transparent. Benefit thieves who do not receive an immediate prison sentence should always have to do unpaid work. Administrative penalties require payment of a 30% penalty of the amount defrauded. In court the penalty should be at least 50%.

And stop all benefits until the penalty and the fraudulently obtained money have been repaid. Let there be a period of six months when people can confess and be dealt with under the present sentencing regime. After that, fraudsters who need benefits will have to find a charity set up to assist benefit cheats. Doesn't sound likely, does it? But if you wouldn't want to give your money voluntarily to benefit fraudsters, why should the state force you to?

This blog aims to inform, appal and campaign.

Anglesey says No to National Fraud Initiative

During a not very good report on The Isle of Anglesey County Council, the Welsh Audit Office writes that

The National Fraud Initiative (NFI) is a biennial computerised data matching exercise conducted across England and Wales. The Audit Commission is responsible for the exercise in England and the Auditor General is responsible for the exercise in Wales through his appointed auditors at local government bodies.

The exercise is designed to identify overpayments to suppliers and benefit claimants and to detect fraud perpetrated on public bodies. The referrals from the 2006-07 exercise were released in January 2007 to participating bodies including local councils. The matches have been investigated and resulted in the identification of £4.7 million of fraud and overpayment across Wales. In May 2008, the Auditor General published a national report on the overall findings of the 2006-07 exercise.

The Council reported no savings in respect of the NFI in 2006-07. This is mainly due to staff shortages which have hindered progress in investigating NFI data. The Council does not feel that the investment that would be required for additional staff would be offset by the gains from further investigation.

Data extractions for the 2008-09 exercise commenced in October 2008 and authorities should receive data matches in early 2009.

This seems extraordinary. Surely their share of £4.7m would have paid for at least one extra member of staff? As it is, Anglesey seem content to turn a blind eye to some aspects of fraud against taxpayers. The council's performance in processing housing benefit has also been criticised.

htp Dave

Northern Ireland prosecutes

I'm told they prosecute benefit fraud more vigorously in northern Ireland. Here's an example.

Martin Logan from Enniskillen was given a conditional discharge for two years and ordered to pay court costs of £19 for duplicate encashment of Income Support totalling £241. He is also required to repay the money wrongfully obtained to the Social Security Agency.

htp Dave

Tamworth magistrates fail in their duty

Three cases from Tamworth magistrates. In the first one the penalty seems reasonable, but in the second and third it was barely a slap on the wrist.

Julie Wynn failed to tell the Lichfield District Council she had savings in an account and was receiving maintenance payments into the same undisclosed account. She fraudulently received £3,570 in housing and council tax benefit, which she has repaid. She was sentenced to 100 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay £450 court costs.

Michelle Chamberlain failed to tell the council that she had a job. As a result she was overpaid £1,964 housing and council tax benefit. She received a conditional discharge for 12 months and was ordered to pay back the overpaid benefit plus £250 court costs.

Barry Gallears failed to disclose that he was claiming a private pension. He has repaid the £3,328 which he falsely claimed in benefits back to the council and must also pay a £250 fine, court costs of a further £250 and a £15 victim surcharge. And that seems to be it.

Jail for £44k benefit fraud

Christine Drown from Nuneaton illegally claimed benefits of £44,503 over eight years while working at a pet store. She claimed incapacity benefit, income support and council tax benefit from 1997 on the grounds she was incapable of working due to ill-health. She has been jailed for a year and told to repay the money.

It was a tip-off that started the investigation and she was interviewed as long ago as 2007. Truly the system works slowly.

In 2007-8 Nuneaton and Bedworth Borough Council council investigated 421 fraud cases and took 52 people to court, including one person who illegally claimed £24,000 in housing benefit.

Benefit fraud in organised crime

Benefit fraud must be attractive to professional criminals. The detection rate is low, enforcement is cumbersome, the conviction rate is even lower, and the penalties are often trivial.

Four staff members working at West Middlesex Hospital have been arrested following an investigation into a counterfeit document ring.

Two men and two women were arrested on Friday after a year-long joint operation involving Hounslow's fraud team, local police, the UK Border Agency, West Mid and their facilities contractor Ecovert FM.

Council leader Peter Thompson said: "Identity theft is a growing problem for employers and even when all the checks are made, sophisticated forgeries may go undetected.

"One type of fraud is often only the tip of the iceberg. That's why we work with so many partners to share information when we suspect something is wrong."

The investigation began after routine checks by the council's fraud squad raised concerns that a number of staff were working at the Isleworth hospital using false documents and falsely claiming benefits.

Simon Marshall, acting chief executive of the hospital, said: "As one of the major employers in Hounslow, we are determined to ensure that all our staff whether employed directly or indirectly have a right to work."

Tony Smith, UK Border Agency regional director, added: "This operation is a good example of how we work with our partner agencies to combat illegal working.

"In London and the South East we carry out about 100 illegal working operations a week. The majority of employers are law-abiding, but to tackle those who fail to carry out the necessary right-to-work checks we've introduced fines of up to £10,000 per illegal worker."

Sponging in Edinburgh

The Lib Dem MP for Edinburgh West writes -

Constituents at my surgeries are often angry that they are struggling to get the support they need, and are entitled to, to cope with a disability, while less deserving neighbours (who know how to play the system) are signed off on incapacity benefit.

The Government recently unveiled its plans to reform Welfare to Work, including proposals to radically toughen the assessments procedure, with every individual currently on incapacity benefit to be reassessed and undergo an all-new assessment process.

However, in the rush to appear tough, we need to make a distinction between those who would cheat the system and those who genuinely want to work but are unable to.

In Edinburgh, recent figures revealed that 47,700 people currently not in work have no interest in getting a job at all. In our rush to tighten up benefit rules we have to make sure that we do not push these people who want to work, but need a bit of support, away from jobs.

When we make generalisations, it is often the deserving minority who lose out. For every person undeservedly living off incapacity benefit there is a disabled person who would love to work, but who needs just a little extra help to get and sustain a job.

While we focus our attention on clamping down on those who abuse the rules we cannot forget those who are failed by the current system.

With half of all disabled people unemployed, part of our new approach must involve tapping into this huge potential that too often goes to waste.

Nice words. We must also not forget the very many people fraudulently sponging off the state. They probably cost us at least £2bn a year - money we will not be able to afford when we have to pay down the debts incurred by the present government.

htp Dave

More benefit frauds

Nicholas Brown, from Chafford Hundred, has admitted four counts of benefit fraud totalling an overpayment of nearly £11,000. He was sentenced to a two-year probation supervision order and has to complete 300 hours unpaid community work. He also has to repay the overpaid benefit within the first 12 months, and court costs of £461.

Belgacem Touati, from Northampton, claimed £3,205 of housing, job and council tax benefits over a seven-month period from September 2007 to April 2008 but failed to inform the DWP that he was working. He was sentenced to 100 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay £150 costs.

htp Dave

Prison for £37k benefit fraud

Between 2002 and 2007 David Humphreys from Wootton Bassett falsely claimed his wife was not working in order to receive income support, council tax benefit and housing benefit totalling £37,121.

He was sentenced to four months in prison.

Conditional discharge for deliberate fraud

Amanda Moss from Market Weighton dishonestly claimed £4,309 in housing and council tax benefits between February 2007 and March 2008 while she was living with her partner.

She was given a two-year order of conditional discharge and ordered to pay £345 costs.

We are told she will also have to pay back the money she got by fraud.

Given asylum and then fiddles benefits

Sahra Warsame from Bedminster kept secret a second bank account into which she was paid wages from an undeclared cleaning job, and fraudulently obtained £30,000 in benefits. She was given a six-month prison sentence, suspended for 12 months.

Some deliberate benefit frauds

Some benefit fraudsters just lead disorganised lives, like our first case today. Others are coldly calculating, like the second and third cases. Yet the system doesn't seem to differentiate.

A fraudster who got more than £4,000 in benefits has been given a community order. Daniella Flanaghan, 25, of Exeter Place, Savick, received a two-year community order and 80 hours' unpaid work. She was also ordered to pay £500 costs by Preston magistrates.

... She had worked for nine different periods between 2003 and 2007, while claiming £3,134 in benefits. After being interviewed under caution, Flanaghan again worked while claiming and failed to declare this, bringing the total amount she had falsely claimed to £4,239.

These next two were clearly deliberate and pre-meditated.

A single mum claimed more than £12,000 in benefits – despite having thousands in the bank.

Dawn Hassen ... admitted seven charges of dishonestly ... between 2001 and 2004.

After a tip-off, the DWP discovered she had three main bank accounts with "significant savings".

The court heard one account held between £2,000 and £5,000, a second account with the same bank held £2,000, and a third showed a balance of up to £9,000. ... She now works as a senior carer and is paying the money back.

The court heard she may have been entitled to some of the payments she received when her bank balances were at their lowest.

Mr Recorder Ekins sentenced her to a community order for 12 months, with 100 hours of unpaid work.

Not only was this dishonesty pre-meditated, but the flow of money in and out suggests there may have been more going on than we are told.

The third case today also showed cold, deliberate dishonesty.

Janet Parks, of ... Bridlington, dishonestly claimed more than £3,500 in housing benefit, Council Tax benefit and Jobseekers’ Allowance.

... She was given a 12-month order of conditional discharge and ordered to pay £80 towards costs.

Parks will also have to pay back the £3,687 in benefits she fraudulently claimed between November 2006 and August 2007.

Fraud investigators discovered Parks had failed to declare an interest in another property.

Deliberate benefit fraudsters deliberately choose to steal from taxpayers. These thieves should be punished more harshly.

Jail and no jail for benefit frauds

Patricia Garner from Newport was jailed for eight months for falsely claiming £11,160 in housing benefits. She failed to declare she was the co-owner of a property between April 10 2002 and August 20 2007 at a trial in Abergavenny Magistrates in December.

What took them so long?

But Adekunle Ogunnusi from Wembley, who had been claiming housing and council tax benefit since at least April 1999 posing as a single man on a low income, and illegally obtained £32,815 in benefits from April 1999 to September 2004, received a 52-week suspended jail term, 250 hours unpaid work, and an order for £1,500 towards costs.

A light sentence for a deliberate crime which took a long time to come to court.

Hardly worth the trouble

Council officers found that Philip Wyeth had claimed his only income was Jobseekers' Allowance, but really he had started full-time work. He admitted fraudulently claiming £1,131 he received in housing benefit, Council Tax benefit and Jobseekers' Allowance. He was sentenced to a 12-month order of conditional discharge and ordered him to pay £80 towards the council's costs. He will also have to pay back the benefit he received between November 2007 and January 2008.

No real punishment there then. Nor for this next case.

Paul Davis from Bromsgrove was found guilty of dishonestly failing to notify that his partner was working, resulting in an overpayment of Housing, Council Tax Benefit and Income Support totalling £5337. He was just fined £300 and ordered to pay a £15 victim surcharge plus £200 costs.

Angela Atkinson from Stonebridge got £6,828 of benefits even though she was working. She received 180 hours of community service and is to pay £75 towards costs.

Kerry Graham from Dollis Hill got £4,079 in benefits even though she was working. She received 100 hours of community service and is to pay £75 towards costs.

Suspended sentence for £17k benefit fraud

A £17,167 benefits fraudster who claimed he couldn't walk more than a few yards without crutches was spotted by investigators showing his Rotweilers and Labradors at the Royal Cornwall Show.

Colin Thomas from Redruth received a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for two years. He must do 120 hours of unpaid work for the community and pay £1,000 in costs. "There was no claim for compensation as that would be dealt with by the authorities."

Thomas only pleaded guilty on the morning his trial was due to begin to three charges of failing to declare that he was working and was self-employed running his business when he claimed income support and council and housing tax benefits.

This was deliberate, long term fraud

More

Nominal punishment for benefit fraud

This woman has been told to repay the benefit she fraudulently obtained. How long would that take? What additional punishment has she had? If this had been dealt with administratively there would have been a 30% penalty.

Susan Adams, from Haydock, was found guilty of four offences of failing to tell the authorities that her circumstances had changed, which she knew would affect her entitlement to Housing and Council Tax Benefit.

She had claimed £3519 that she wasn’t entitled to and was handed a £60 fine and ordered to pay a £15 Victim Surcharge and £40 in legal costs.

Fraud couple imprisoned for 16 months

A Leicester couple was sentenced to 16 months imprisonment after conning the benefits system out of £57,960.

Mrs Ameena Iqbal falsely claimed benefit as an unemployed single parent, despite the fact that her husband, Mr Aslam Iqbal, 33, had been living with her for over four years.

Not only had they been living together, but Mr Iqbal was working and had purchased their home, meaning that they were no longer liable to pay rent. Had these changes been declared, no Income Support, Housing Benefit or Council Tax benefit would have been paid.

Two meaningless sentences for benefit fraud

Even of the benefit fraud cases detected, very few are prosecuted. What is the deterrent effect of sentences like these? They're more like an invitation to have a go.

A single mother with three children who fraudulently claimed more than £20,000 in benefits was spared jail.

Shahida Maqsood, 43, a freelance NHS employee from Bradford, pleaded guilty to 11 counts of benefit fraud dating back to 2002.

Bradford magistrates were told she had provided false information when applying for housing benefit for the Lonsdale Street house, which had been her father’s and had passed to her brother after his death.

She also failed to notify the authorities that her mother, for whom she is the main carer, also lived at the address for at least part of that time.

Magistrates gave Maqsood a community sentence of 160 hours’ unpaid work and ordered her to pay costs of £200. She agreed to pay back the money at a rate of £100 per month. That's more than 16 years.

In mitigation, the court was told Maqsood had arrived from Pakistan in 2001 having separated from her husband. It was claimed she was not aware of the laws in the UK and had been advised to claim benefits by family members. Better check their benefits too.

========

An investigation by East Riding of Yorkshire Council led to the prosecution of Sarana Guest from Goole, who claimed more than £7,500 in housing and council tax benefits. She declared that her only income was her income support, but fraud investigators discovered that her partner was working.

Goole Magistrates Court sentenced her to a two-year conditional discharge. She was also ordered to pay £315 towards ERYC's costs and will have to pay back the £7,550.87 she fraudulently received while claiming benefit between September 2007 and June 2008.

Effectively she got away with it. There is no deterrence in this sentence.

htp: Dave

Small fraudsters pay proportionally more

Richard Lawrence, from St Leonards, claimed housing and council tax benefit until June 2008 but failed to tell assessors he had started a job two months earlier - a fact which came to light through a computer data match.

He was found guilty in his absence on Friday of receiving £480 in housing benefit and £145 in council tax benefit he was not entitled to.

Magistrates agreed he should pay back the full amount of £625 - plus a fine of £350 and costs of £243.

That's a penalty of 95%, which is more like it. But it's not applied proportionately to larger benefit frauds.

Benefit fraudsters should also have to repay twice the amount and should not be eligible for further benefits – including tax credits - until they have.

Blue badge fraudster gets off lightly

A retired businessman from Paddington has been convicted of using his dead mother's disabled parking badge on his Mercedes sports car - three years after she died.

He was caught using the document, issued by Harrow Council, by Kensington and Chelsea Council's fraud team who received a tip-off from the police. Investigators found the disc expired in 2006, but the date had been changed to 2008. Mr Laren's mother died in January 2005. He was fined £750 and ordered to pay costs of £1,532.14.

htp: Dave again

Fatuously Cllr Fiona Buxton said, "I hope this sends out the message to those thinking of committing fraud with a disabled blue badge that they will be caught."

Which it clearly won't.

As we saw last year, 2.3 million disabled blue badges were issued in 2007. For someone working in Central London, possession of a fraudulent blue badge would mean that charges (congestion charge plus car parking charges) over £5,000 a year could be avoided; and there would also be an adverse impact on disabled people who genuinely need concessions and parking spaces close to their local amenities.

So the penalty is trivial. Additional to the sentence, any vehicle in a blue badge fraud should be seized and sold.

Huntingdonshire District Council prosecutes

Sacha Kite, who had denied two counts of fraud between 2005 and 2006, was found guilty in her absence, having failed to attend her trial. The court heard that she had failed to report that her husband was in full time work while she claimed benefit for the family. She was overpaid £3,182 in housing and Council Tax benefit. The court was also told that she had a previous conviction in 2005 for benefit fraud. The magistrates imposed a 12 month community order with the requirement that Kite compete 250 hours of unpaid work. She was also ordered to pay £2,084 compensation, representing the outstanding benefit overpayment, and £100 costs.

Gillian Thulborn admitted that she had failed to report to the council that she received payments from a trust fund, putting them into a bank account which she had not declared on her claims for housing and council tax benefit between 2005 and 2007. Information had been received from a member of the public that she had hidden her true income and bank accounts so that she could claim benefit. She was overpaid £2,190 in benefit and arrangements are in place for the money to be repaid. Thulborn received an 18 month conditional discharge and was ordered to pay £150 costs. Just a conditional discharge for deliberate theft.

Rosina Westbrook claimed benefit between 2001 and 2004 and again between 2006 and 2007 but had failed to declare that her two daughters who lived with her were in work. She accepted that she had claimed £12,721 that she was not entitled to and had now made arrangements to repay the money. Just like that! She was sentenced to a six-month community penalty and will be required to undergo 30 hours of skills for life training. She was also ordered to pay £100 costs to the council.

Richard Houghton and Terri Houghton each received 24-month conditional discharges. They had claimed council tax benefit of £5,800 between 2003 and 2007, declaring they ran a failing financial consultancy business which had not realised any profit for a number of years. Following an investigation by the council and HM Revenues and Customs it was found that the couple had acquired assets of more than £70,000, that both had numerous undisclosed bank accounts, and that in 2005 the business had made a profit of £25,000. It was also disclosed that during the time they were claiming benefit the couple had purchased a new Range Rover Freelander and Audi Quattro sports car with personalised number plates.

Simon Milburn for the Houghtons, told the court that his clients were of previous good character, and accepted that their completion of benefit forms had been 'tardy to say the least'. They had now repaid all the money owed to the council, and Mrs Houghton was now very ill, providing the court letters from her consultant. Passing sentence the magistrates took Mrs Houghton's health issues and the implications of them on the couple. They received 24-month conditional discharges and were ordered to pay £520 towards the council's costs. In other words, they got away with it.

htp: Dave again

Benefit cheats imprisoned

Stephen Moss has been sentenced to six months' imprisonment for fraudulently obtaining £28,769 in Housing and Council Tax Benefits from Newham Council while he was receiving an occupational pension from his former employer, Transport for London. The court recommended that that he should spend at least three months in prison before being eligible for release. But having taken his current financial situation into account, he was not ordered to pay costs or compensation.

So he gets to keep our money.

A woman who fraudulently claimed UK housing benefits while living in the USA has been jailed. Barbara Pryce, from Sutton, pleaded guilty to claiming over £7,000 of housing and council tax benefit for two years while she was living abroad. She failed to inform the authorities of her move, and continued to claim benefit for a council property she was not living in. She re-married in the States and had her third child, but only returned to the UK after the relationship had broke down.

htp: Dave

Benefit fraud in Essex

Glenna Medhurst, from Grays, pleaded guilty to obtaining £24,895 in benefits by failing to declare that she was living with her partner and that he was working. She was sentenced to 51 weeks imprisonment on each of the ten counts (concurrently) suspended for one year. She was also ordered to do 200 hours unpaid work and pay £500 costs. She is to repay the fraudulent benefits.

But no immediate prison for such a big fraud.

Enita Chiwara, also from Grays, admitted fraudulently obtaining benefit by failing to declare that she was working (an overpayment of £5,448). She was sentenced to 80 hours unpaid work to be completed in a year and has to repay the benefit.

Light sentences for big benefit frauds

Jordana Bowes from Abbots Langley has escaped a jail sentence after admitting a £29,000 benefit fraud. She was given an eight month prison sentence suspended for two years. She was also ordered to undertake 250 hours of unpaid work and 25 days of specified education requirement. No costs were ordered for prosecution because Bowes still has to repay the £29,000 she claimed fraudulently!

(By the way, why is a wife beater on incapacity benefit?)

Lisa Webb from Canvey, pregnant with her third child at 25, who fraudulently claimed more than £13,000 while working for BT, has been spared jail. She was sentenced to eight months in prison, suspended for 12 months, along with 12 months supervision.

Family tutorial in how to swindle benefits ...

... and the first one sentenced gets a pathetic sentence.

Smiling for the camera as they prepare to board a boat trip in sunny Spain, they look like happy and healthy holidaymakers.

But Allan and Lorraine Peters were in fact the heads of a family who fleeced the benefits system out of more than £130,000 by falsely claiming they were too sick to work.

Allan Peters, 56, claimed he couldn't leave his home without an oxygen cylinder - while his wife, 52, said she needed a stick to walk and became breathless with the slightest exertion.

They claimed £72,000 in disability and incapacity allowances while all the time they were working as cleaners for Stretford-based company Cleaning North West.

They used false names for their jobs, with the names Allan and Deborah Doyle appearing on their wage slips.

But investigators rumbled the Peters, from Haddon Road, Eccles, and found the holiday photograph, which is thought to have been taken in Majorca.

Also in on the scam were their two sons, Garry and Martin Peters and Mrs Peters' 51-year-old brother Compton McKenzie.

All worked for the same cleaning company while claiming benefits and also used false names on their wage slips.

The three of them admitted benefits fraud totalling around £58,000, making a final bill to the taxpayer of £130,000 in sums cheated by the five members of the family.

Garry Peters, 31, of Cannon Street, Eccles, was employed with the cleaning firm from 2005 at the same time as he claimed £38,000 incapacity benefit and income support on the grounds that he was unable to work because he had rheumatoid arthritis.

His brother Martin, 28, of Clarendon Crescent, Eccles, started working there early the following year despite claiming £10,000 jobseekers allowance and care allowance, which he said he was entitled to because he looked after his poorly father Allan.

McKenzie, of Chesterton Road, Wythenshawe, joined the company in 2005 and did cleaning work at the same time as he was also claiming that he was unable to work because he was agoraphobic.

He cheated the benefits system out of around £10,000 in incapacity benefit and disabled living allowance.

After an investigation by the Department for Work and Pensions, all five members of the family admitted benefits fraud.

Four of them will be sentenced next month. Martin Peters was given a 12-month community order at Minshull Street Crown Court.

He was sentenced after earlier admitting claiming £10,331 in benefits he was not entitled to.

This included more than £2,400 in job seekers allowance between December 2006 and September 2007 and nearly £1,300 in carers' allowance.

The court was told he had initially started out legitimately claiming benefits when he was out of work and suffering from alcoholism, but that he had continued to claim after starting work for the cleaning firm.

Judge Timothy Mort told him: "It is a crime against everybody to be claiming benefit when you are not entitled to it."

Martin Peters - who is now on benefits he is legitimately entitled to - will have a few pounds a week docked from his money to repay what he owes.

Judge Mort said if he continued to pay at the current rate it would take more than 30-years to clear the debt.

He said: "To put it bluntly the money will never get paid back."

You can read the hostile comments here.

Fraudster to clear debt slowly from future benefits

A benefits fraudster who cheated the system out of more than £24,000 by claiming she was a single mum has been jailed for nine months.

Patricia Gallagher was also ordered to pay back the cash – but at a rate of just £5.75 a week deducted from her benefits it will take her 81 years to do it.

More

Trivial sentence for blatant benefit fraud

A former mayor who got £18,000 in benefits by claiming he could not walk unaided has escaped jail, despite being caught on camera hauling a huge bag of heavy compost from his car and carrying it to his garden.

The DWP carried out a five-month covert investigation on Horwich ex-mayor and former Liberal Democrat Councillor Bernard McCartin, 66, who claimed it would take him half-an-hour to walk just 25 yards. He was filmed by surveillance officers easily covering distances of up to 1,100 yards with no discomfort and no difficulty and at a brisk pace.

But he got an eight week suspended jail sentence after being caught red-handed bending, kneeling and sitting on his haunches while staining his front fence and stretching to clean his front porch while stood on step ladders. He was given a six-month curfew between 5pm and 5am and would be electronically tagged, and was ordered to pay £250 costs at £5 a week.

An anonymous tip-off to the National Benefit Fraud Hotline back in 2006 sparked a surveillance operation which was carried out between January and May 2007. He was also spotted hauling tables and boxes to sell football programmes outside Bolton Wanderers football stadium.

Mr McCartin, a former special constable, chauffeur and and Remembrance Day parade leader, was interviewed under caution in August 2007 and admitted there had been an improvement in his condition since May 2003 when he became a councillor. It has only now come to trial in 2009.

He is currently repaying the cash back at a piffling £12 per week and has so far paid just over £500.

After the hearing Andrew Wood, a Team Fraud Investigator for the DWP fraud investigation service, said: 'I think the sentence that has been handed down demonstrates how seriously the courts view this type of offence'.

Indeed it does - a trivial punishment for stealing £18,000.

Jail for £62,000 benefit fraud

A Leeds woman who received £61,869 in falsely claimed benefits by claiming she was a single mother has been jailed for 18 months.

The 26-year-old claimed that she and her five children lived alone in a house rented from a private landlord, allowing her to claim Housing and Council Tax Benefit between March 2004 and September 2007 totalling £23,098.20. She also claimed Income Support of £38,771.32. She had said her partner and the father of her children did not live there, despite his employer listing him as living there with her and their children.

Benefit cheats should have to pay back more than they stole, and they should not get any more benefits until they have.

26, five children and "living alone"? It does make you wonder what other claims Leeds are paying.

Barnet reports benefit frauds

Benefit fraud detected by Barnet's fraud team in 2008 totalled £667,361. But we aren't told how much bemefit the borough paid out in total.

The team closed 223 cases as ‘fraud proven’, but only 31 claimants were found guilty of housing or council tax benefit offences after court hearings.

137 claimants were offered and accepted administrative penalties, under which the benefit cheat agrees to pay an extra 30% in addition to the original overpayment.

A formal caution was accepted by a further 23 people, which is offered to a claimant who has made a full admittance to the crime, but the overpayment and mitigating circumstances are then taken into account.

The rest of the cases were closed with no further action being taken due to lack of evidence.

The council expects to get back less than half the money. About 137 false claimants are due to pay back almost £292,000.

For example, Eunice Opare, formerly of Whitehouse Way, Southgate, but now living in Edmonton, left her address in Barnet but continued to receive housing benefit payments into her bank account for 10 months up to May last year, creating an overpayment of £9,695.33. But she was only ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid community work and to pay £500 costs.

Susie Squire, campaign manager for the Taxpayers’ Alliance, branded benefit fraud “a total disgrace”.

At this time of recession ordinary taxpayers are working hard to feed their families and any sort of fraud is grossly unfair. Every step needs to be taken to stop this happening and the people committing benefit fraud need to be caught and punished.

Frank Field's proposals for welfare reform

Welfare should be an important weapon in the country’s armoury for fighting surging unemployment. The Government’s pioneering New Deal has cost a staggering £75 billion over the past decade. But benefit claimants have fallen by only 400,000, despite the creation of over three million new jobs. The number of foreign workers entering the UK in the past decade – now making up one in nine of the total working population – shows that there are jobs available.

The Government’s approach is wrong for two main reasons. It does not time-limit benefits, and therefore allows claimants to continue receiving welfare while making little or no attempt to find work. It also uses training as a stick; a positive, worthwhile activity is being devalued by being used as a sanction.

Radical reform is urgently needed. There are four key pillars.

First, the only test of a person’s willingness to work is the offer of a job. Claimants who turn down reasonable job offers should have their benefits stopped. Benefits must be time-limited, for young, single people in areas where there have been net job gains. Evidence from around the world shows that, far from driving families into desperate poverty, making benefits restricted and conditional – as Beveridge intended – can be the catalyst for claimants to find employment. Bill Clinton’s 1996 reforms, which limited benefits to a five year period, resulted in a 65 per cent fall in the number of claimants with no increase in poverty; in fact more money could go to those who really needed it.

Second, decisions about who gets benefits and how much they receive should be made locally, by freeing the Jobcentre Plus network from central control. People who know the local job market are best placed to get claimants into work – and to spot benefit fraud.

Third, we must abolish the use of training as a sanction. Young New Deal claimants complain that their attempts to improve their skills are disrupted by a large element who, in Barbara Castle’s words, simply “monkey around”. The value of training must be restored.

Fourth, long term workers who lose their job should have much higher Jobseeker’s Allowance with the benefit dependent on the number of contribution years. Requalifying for benefit should also be made much easier.

Ending “money for nothing” welfare and shifting to a “money for something” system will result in a sustainable welfare programme that actively helps benefit claimants return to the job market. These reforms will allow the UK economy to come out of the recession fighting, and give the workless the chance they deserve to get back on their feet.

More here

More light sentences for big benefit frauds

A Brixton benefit fraudster who wrongly claimed nearly £40,000 in benefits from Lambeth Council will not go to prison. She had tens of thousands of pounds in bank accounts only she had access to - but still claimed she was a part-time cleaner who needed income support. She was sentenced to nine months imprisonment, suspended for two years, ordered to pay £2,500 in prosecution costs, and told to do nine months of community service.

A former Ilkeston woman was sentenced to 180 hours community service after conning the benefits system out of £30,550 by falsely claiming she lived as a single parent.