£50k benefit frauds - different sentences

A 38 year-old Upper Gornal mother, who fiddled over £55,000 in benefits sobbed as she was jailed for eight months at Wolverhampton Crown Court.

Judge Helen Hughes told Lisa Roberts, of Eve Lane, she had defrauded the Department of Work and Pensions out of a "huge" amount of money.

"You knew what you was doing was wrong and that you should have told the truth to the benefits agency," she added."You have benefitted to the tune of £55,000."

Roberts admitted two charges of failing to notify the Department of a change in her circumstances.

Jas Mann prosecuting said Roberts claimed she was a single, unemployed parent and, as a result, she was paid Income Support and Council tax and Housing benefits.

But information was received that she had reconciled with her husband and was living at the family home.

There were "multiple" frauds on the Department but, the court was told, it was accepted the initial claim by Roberts for benefits had been genuine.

Tariq Mahmood defending said Roberts who was of previous good character accepted she should have informed the authorities her husband had moved back into the house.

Meanwhile, a benefits cheat from Ascot who took £51,152 from the state and lived in a plush apartment yards from the racecourse, avoided prison on Friday.

Elizabeta Diminic-Parmar, 33, was handed a 12 month sentence, suspended for 12 months, and 250 hours of unpaid work at a Reading Crown Court sentencing.

The Croatian had failed to declare to the Royal Borough about her circumstances over a near four year period from July 2004 to May 2008, in order to claim housing and council tax benefit, as well as income support cash.

The court heard how she once rented a place at the Grand Regency Heights development in Burleigh Road, where some flats cost more than £2,000 a month.

Diminic-Parmar had also sent some of the money back to her home country Croatia, which she had left in 1995 and used it to pay off other loans and bills she had racked up.

In sentencing, recorder Peter Ferris, said he would not send her to prison, as she was of good character and it would have a negative impact on her three young children.

She is currently paying back £30 a month.

• She has run rings round the system. We will never get the money back.