Sub-letting to be criminal offence

I blogged before about the case for making sub-letting of social housing a criminal offence. Housing minister John Healey has now said he wants ‘to deter those who are thinking of making a fast buck from council housing’ by allowing councils to chase tenants subletting fraudulently through the criminal as well as the civil courts.

Breaking a tenancy agreement by subletting a social property is currently only a civil offence, meaning offenders can just lose their tenancy. Making it a criminal offence would allow social landlords to pursue offenders through the criminal courts, meaning they could be fined and ordered to repay any profits.

‘Tenancy cheats cannot be allowed to hang onto the council houses they don’t need,’ said Mr Healey. ‘By unlawfully subletting these properties for a profit they deprive families of the homes they need.’

Mr Healey announced a crack down on subletting in November, including a £4 million grant to help councils set up anti-fraud initiatives and a £500 reward for people providing information leading to the recovery of a sub-let home.

The government has given councils and housing associations 27,000 leads to potential tenancy cheats, uncovered through data sweeps by the Audit Commission where tenancy records are cross-referenced with housing benefit and electoral records.

Jail for housing benefit fraudster

Eastleigh Borough Council took firm action against a former resident who was living in Horton Heath and fraudulently claiming housing benefit from Eastleigh Borough Council. The benefit was paid on the basis that he was paying rent to a fictitious landlord over a period in excess of five years.

The case was first brought to the Council’s attention in August 2005 and after lengthy investigations it was found that a large over payment of more than £50,000 had occurred.

The case was heard in November 2009 at Southampton Magistrates Court where David Neville aged 64 of Horton Heath pleaded guilty to nine offences of giving false details on a housing benefit claim form.

The case was sent to Crown Court for sentencing in March 2010 where Mr Neville was sentenced to 14 months imprisonment. Due to the length of sentence no costs were awarded to the Council.

A Council spokesperson says “We take the issue of housing benefit fraud extremely seriously as it is a cost to the taxpayers of the borough. We hope that this sentence sends a strong message that the Council will not tolerate benefit fraud and we will take appropriate action to seek recovery of fraudulently gained money.”

Benefit thief's homes fetch £1m

Thirteen houses seized from a benefit cheat have been sold for more than £1m.

Belfast woman Frances McCluskey, 61, was ordered to hand over more than 40 properties after a judge ruled her assets were the proceeds of crime.

McCluskey claimed benefits for 11 years while at the same time developing a substantial property portfolio.

She obtained almost £5m in loans to buy 41 properties, including two in Spain, while claiming almost £70,000 in benefits.

McCluskey traded as Parkdale Homes based in Priory Park in south Belfast.

She was ordered to hand the properties over to the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) in January, and on Thursday night, 13 of the houses were sold at auction for just over £1m.

McCluskey attended the auction and looked on as part of her property empire was sold off.

She even tried to buy one of the houses back - but she was outbid.

Five paintings McCluskey bought using rental income from the houses were also sold for just over £8,000.

The remaining 28 properties will be sold off in the next few months.

In a statement, the social security agency pointed out that it detected the fraud and passed the case on to SOCA.

It said it is looking at any lessons that can be learned.

Anonymous tip leads to prison

A working mother who fiddled nearly £20,000 in benefits over five years has been jailed.

The judge told Tracey Ann Nee, 37, that it would be an insult to honest, decent people if she was allowed to walk free.

Nee, who burst into tears, falsely claimed housing benefit from Redcar and Cleveland Council when she was living in a house owned by Peter Harrison, the father of one of her two children.

He bought the Teesville house in February 2003 two weeks before her tenancy began.

She initially denied being in a relationship with him or that he was the father of her younger child.

The council received an anonymous tip in May 2008 that her landlord was the father of her child, prosecutor Joan Smith told Teesside Crown Court yesterday.

She said: “Mr Harrison contacted the local authority in May last year and said he would be paying off the overpayment at £50 a week, but no payment has been made by either of them.”

Judge John Walford told Nee: “I have to sentence you for a serious offence generally known as benefit fraud.

“You lied in order to claim housing benefit totalling almost £20,000, and those fraudulent claims and the receipt of money based on them lasted over a period of some five years.

“Not to recognise the seriousness of this sort of offending would be an affront to honest, decent people.”

The judge added: “For this level of fraud there has to be a custodial sentence, and there has to be a custodial sentence of some length to send out a message that those who choose to defraud the system must know the consequences.”

Nee of Kingsway Avenue, Teesville, Middlesbrough, was jailed for six months after she pleaded guilty to making false claims for housing benefit between March 2003 and May 2008.

Warren Grier, defending, said the money went directly to Nee’s former lover Peter Harrison and he had offered to repay it.

Mr Grier said that Mr Harrison had put the house up for sale and Nee and her children aged eight and 15 would have to find somewhere new to live.

He added: “This is not someone who is going to come back into the criminal justice system at all.

“This was something foolish and this is money which has to be repaid, it’s going to take her an awfully long time to pay it back.”

Mr Grier said Mr Harrison was the beneficiary of the money and he could hide away from it.

Light sentence for £9k benefit fraud

A man who fraudulently claimed over £9,000 in benefits while he was working has been electronically tagged.

Between January 2006 and June 2007 Robert Condy claimed nearly £6000 in income support from the DWP. He was also paid £3204 by West Lothian Council for housing and council tax benefit.

However it emerged that Condy, who told officials he was unemployed, had been working at Broxburn Nursing Home.

Condy, whose address was given as Kelso Street, Broxburn, pled guilty to the offences.His solicitor told the court her client had arrangements in place to repay the money.

She added: “Clearly it will take a significant amount of time to repay these sums. He did not take his responsibilities seriously enough in so far as making sure he was on the right side of the law with his benefits and work. There is a clear link between his alcohol problem and his mental health issues.”

Ordering Condy to stay within his home between 8pm and 8am for the next nine months Sheriff Donald Muirhead said he had come close to jailing Condy.

Sheriff Muirhead said: “You understand that the fraudulent removal from the rest of us of over £9000 is a very serious matter and I am very close to giving you a custodial sentence. (Yeah, yeah, how many times have we heard this?)

“But you do have a background not only of heavy drinking, which is not an excuse, but of serious depression and I think in the circumstances it would be appropriate to give you a restriction of liberty order.”

Light sentence for £28k benefit fraud

An anonymous tip sparked a fraud case that has ended with a benefits cheat being hauled before the courts for cheating the system of nearly £28,000 between August 2004 and March 2009.

Nighat Ali was ordered to carry out 200 hours community service and pay £300 costs. Ali, from Maidenhead, had admitted six counts of failing to notify a change in circumstances to the Royal Borough or DWP.

As well as the community service sentence, Ali will have to repay all the money claimed illegally, we're told.

Cllr Richard Kellaway, cabinet member for finance, said: "Those who intentionally defraud the taxpayer are very likely to be found out." Ha ha!

• These people do it for the money. So hit them in the pocket. It was money that motivated them, and a financial penalty will help to deter them.
  
  Benefit thieves should have to repay twice what they've stolen, and should not be eligible for any further benefits – including tax credits - until they have. A confiscation order should be automatic and immediate.
  
  If you don't punish people who are convicted of an easy crime, the offence will continue to look attractive.

Prisoners paid £27m benefits behind bars

Prisoners have carried out a robbery from behind bars – stealing £27 million of taxpayers’ money in fraudulent benefits from the public purse reports the Daily Mail.

The huge sum of income support payments was overpaid to prisoners by the DWP after criminals failed to report that they had been sent to jail.

£6million was overpaid to criminals behind bars in 2008/09, a 50 per cent rise over the £4million figure the year before.
Some £7 million was overpaid in 2006/07, £4 million in 2005/06 and £6 million in 2004/05 - a total of £27 million in the last five years.

Minister Helen Goodman insisted the fraudulent overpayments had been 'consistently low' and accounted for 'no more' than 0.1 per cent of the overall income support bill - which is hardly the point.

But the figures were slammed as ‘insulting’ to hard working people struggling to brave the recession and evidence that the government cannot get a grip on fraud.

Ms Goodman said: ‘Fraud can occur when a person is sent to prison and they do not notify the department. If this is the case, there can be a short delay before the benefit payments are stopped.

‘The department matches its data with that held by the Ministry of Justice to identify prisoners who may still be in receipt of benefit.’

The minister claimed that the DWP has tightened up its procedures in a bid to drive down the scale of the fraud.

‘This data match now takes place weekly instead of four-weekly,’ she said. ‘We are detecting prisoner fraud more quickly than ever before, thus reducing the size of any overpayments. Over the last five years this type of fraud has only arisen in income support.’

Shadow Work and Pensions Minister Mark Harper said: ‘This will strike most decent law abiding people as deeply unfair.

‘At a time when hard working families are struggling to make ends meet, it is staggering that the taxpayer has lost £27 million paid fraudulently to prisoners.

‘The benefits system should be there to help support people who genuinely need it, not to be another source of income for criminals. We can’t go on like this. The Government need to get a grip.’

Matthew Elliott, chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: ‘It's completely unacceptable that benefits have continued to be paid to convicted criminals. One arm of Government clearly doesn't know what the other one is doing.

‘If the Government can't stop benefit fraud by convicted prisoners who are detained at Her Majesty's Pleasure, what hope is there of stopping other forms of benefit fraud?

‘The fact that this has been allowed to occur is insulting to taxpayers, especially those who have been the victims of crime.’

Earlier this month it emerged that a form of "unemployment benefit" worth £2.50 a week is available to prisoners who are willing to carry out jail duties but cannot because there is no suitable work available.

Figures also showed that prisoners released early under the scrapped End of Custody Licence scheme to ease overcrowding have been paid almost £7 million in subsistence payments.

£50k benefit fraud - no jail

A BENEFIT cheat who defrauded more than £53,000 from a council has got away with 280 hours' community service.

Wacquez Lebeni, from New Cross, falsely claimed income support of £22,709 and housing and council tax benefit of £30,846 between May 2004 and February last year.


Lebeni’s deception was uncovered as part of a regular data-matching exercise carried out by Lewisham Council. But not frequent enough - she got away with it for nearly five years.

It checks details of benefit claimants against payroll details of large organisations or those claiming student loans.

Lebeni’s national insurance number and date of birth details showed she was working for the NHS.

A repayment plan has been put in place for Lebeni to pay back the money, we are told.

• These people do it for the money. So hit them in the pocket. It was money that motivated them, and a financial penalty will help to deter them.
  
  Benefit thieves should have to repay twice what they've stolen, and should not be eligible for any further benefits – including tax credits - until they have. A confiscation order should be automatic and immediate.
  
  If you don't punish people who are convicted of an easy crime, the offence will continue to look attractive.

Benefit frauds round-up

Slough Borough Council and the DWP have successfully prosecuted a man for falsely claiming benefits totalling £19,617 despite being in paid employment.

Mohammed Khan was sentenced to 22 weeks custody, suspended for two years, a six month supervision order and was told to pay costs of £250.

More

A woman who failed to notify Trafford Council that her partner had started paid employment has been found guilty of benefit fraud.

Claire Maylott, aged 24, was convicted of dishonestly obtaining Housing and Council Tax Benefit amounting to £5,498. She was overpaid benefit between May 2008 and March 2009.

Mrs Maylott was sentenced to a two-year conditional discharge as, due to medical reasons, she was deemed to be unable to carry out any kind of unpaid work. She is also required to repay all the money that she had falsely claimed.

More

£36k benefit theft - no jail, 20 years to repay

A benefits cheat will be repaying the £36,000 he obtained by fraud until he is well into his 80s, Dundee Sheriff Court heard.

Sheriff Richard Davidson told 66-year-old grandfather Angus Gallacher Hepburn he hoped he would live long enough to pay back the cash he had “deliberately and systematically set out to defraud from public funds” over almost 20 years.

The sheriff put Hepburn on probation for three years, adding two special conditions.

He must complete 300 hours of unpaid work—the maximum that can be imposed—and a curfew order will keep the pensioner in his Charleston Drive home between 7pm and 7am for a year.

More

Organised crime nets £450k

The Ragob case, which I blogged before, has now come to court.

Criminals from eastern Europe set up a fake Tyneside firm and flew in bogus workers to run a massive benefit fraud.

The Czech and Slovak nationals behind the scam worth almost £500,000 had plotted how they could milk the UK system.

Ringleaders from their base on Tyneside registered Ragob Building Ltd. The firm appeared to hire more than 50 workers, all of them employed for no more than 16 hours a week and therefore able to claim extra benefits. But Ragob was a phantom firm set up only to stage the con, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

The so-called workers were players in the fraud known as horses, flown in and quickly back out after getting the paperwork necessary to plunder benefits.

Now six Czech and Slovak nationals are facing jail after admitting their parts in the scheme.

The Crown say the evidence shows the employment of individuals for Ragob Building was an organised fraud centred on tax credits and involving the participation of these defendants in varying degrees, said Paul Simpson, prosecuting. The prosecution say this group has been instrumental in the facilitation of people into the UK solely for this fraud to take place.

Key players Petr Bogar and partner Jarmila Konopova registered Ragob in May 2008 using the home of co-accused as the business address. Others from eastern Europe were then flown to the UK on flights into Leeds Bradford Airport, collected and driven to Tyneside, and signed up as part-time workers.

Fifty-five individuals have registered as working no more than 16 hours per week, Mr Simpson said.

The 16 hours is important. That entitles an individual to apply for working tax credit and child tax credits if they have children. Once the workers had been properly registered, the illegal benefits could begin to flow.

All that was needed thereafter was either a written response or telephone call to confirm their circumstances had not changed, Mr Simpson said. The individuals brought into the country normally stayed no more than two, three or four days.

Agents from the Immigration Crime Team, Customs, the DWP, Newcastle Council and UK Border Agency worked together to smash the fraud ring during an operation codenamed Mustard.

Petr Bogar, 36; Konopova, 51, both of Walcher Grove, Gateshead; Miroslav Bogar, 54; Martin Bogar, 35; Paulina Bogarova, 34, all of Delaval Road, Scotswood; and Martin Balog, 26, of Mead Walk, Walker, all admitted conspiracy to defraud.

Figures given from the DWP show £451,759 was paid out over the 21-month period, Mr Simpson said. Of the 55 applicants under Ragob 17 were rejected and did not receive any payments. Thirty-eight applicants did and that, if you take an average, is £566 per month per claimant.

Richard Bloomfield, defending, said Bogar had been instructed how to exploit a loophole in the benefit system.

"I have to accept a lot of money wrongly left the public purse as a result of what he was involved in one way or another", Mr Bloomfield said. "Without diminishing what has happened here, these are not the first people to have perpetrated this type of fraud. All the indications are that they won't be the last."

Judge Beatrice Bolton was due to continue the sentence and hearing.

DWP staff cheat the system

Taxpayers have lost nearly £2million to benefit cheats who work for the very Government department that runs the welfare system, reports the Express.

The money was taken within the DWP between 2004 and 2009 by staff who are supposed to weed out cheating claimants.

£1.1million was lost to benefit fraud by DWP staff in the last five years and more than £700,000 in other types of fraud, including expenses abuse, wrongly-claimed overtime and theft of DWP property.

It is not known if any of the £1.8million has been recovered but a department spokesman said it “had a process in place” to recover money stolen by any cheats it caught.

The DWP employs more than 100,000 people at its Whitehall headquarters and in its national network, which includes jobcentres and the pension service.

A spokesman said: “We have a duty to the taxpayers to ensure their money is spent correctly. The department considers fraud in any form to be unacceptable.

“We will always discipline staff where it is proven, and prosecute where the law has been broken.”

Last week it emerged that overpaid benefits totalling £1.85billion were still in the claimants’ pockets as the Government struggled to claw back the cash. The Government says it has cut the overall cost of benefit fraud but was forced to admit that claims it had fallen from £2billion to £1billion a year was based on too small a sample to be reliable.

The figures given to Parliament in a written answer by Mr Shaw showed that in 2008-9 an estimated £301,528 was lost to benefit fraud by its staff. Forty-two staff members were identified in investigations.

A further £216,149 was estimated to have been lost through other types of fraud, with 156 people involved in inquiries that finished in the year.

Mr Shaw’s answer also revealed that the annual amount lost has risen dramatically, even though staff numbers have fallen.

The total estimated to have been lost in 2008-9 when 102,000 staff were in post was £517,677, more than nine times the sum lost in 2004-5 when the DWP employed 127,000.

Mother of Goa teenager admits benefit fraud

It always seemed odd that Fiona MacKeown could afford to take her daughter Scarlett Keeling to Goa (where she left her to be murdered).

She has now admitted falsely claiming £19,000 income support between February 2005 and March 2008. She is to be sentenced later.

Mendip owns £80 per household figure

Mendip District Council write:

The Government has estimated that benefit fraud costs the country approximately £80 per household in Britain each year with every case of benefit fraud being at a cost to each and every one of us. Mendip has approximately 48,000 households. That means that in our area, over £3.8 million is potentially lost to benefit fraud.

Whether it's £80 or £100 or more, keep banging that message in terms people can relate to.

The burden on benefit recipients

It's said that some people who are on benefits have some of the most disorganised lives, being in and out of jobs and relationships more often than most of the population.

Some of them will also be among the least able to communicate with officialdom easily. Yet they have to do so every time their "circumstances" change.

Thus a South Staffordshire woman who dishonestly claimed nearly £7,000 in housing benefit has been ordered to carry out a twelve month community order after pleading guilty.

Sarah Turner, aged 23, from Huntington, had started claiming housing benefit from the council in June 2006. A council investigation, three years later in July 2009, found that Miss Turner had been in receipt of working tax credit and had been employed three times between July 2007 and July 2009.

By dishonestly failing to report that she was working and in receipt of working tax credit during her claim, she was overpaid Housing Benefit of £6,891.

Miss Turner was given a twelve month Community Order to be supervised by the probation service and ordered to pay the council’s costs of £252. The money is now being paid back to the council in monthly instalments.

But if working tax credit is being paid, why should it be up to her to trek round the paying agencies? Why can the state, with all its resources, not arrange off its own bat for Miss Turner to receive the correct amounts of benefit? In the age of IT this really should not be hard.

It is not just a managerial issue of protecting the interests of other taxpayers. It is also a moral issue, of ensuring that the state does not thrust upon poor people receiving benefit more money than they are entitled to, which they may have difficulty paying back.

This blog campaigns for benefit thieves to pay penalties for their actions. But it also believes that the state has a moral obligation not to thrust temptation in people's way.

Hendon benefit thief jailed

A Hendon man has been jailed for 15 months for scamming Barnet Council of £51,925 of taxpayers money.

Joseph Saifi admitted making illegal housing and council tax benefit claims between May 2002 and October 2007 in January. This week he was jailed for 15 months at Wood Green Crown Court.

Investigators for the council discovered he had two children with the woman he claimed was his landlord, and she was also the director of the business he said he was a secretary for.

Further investigations uncovered previously undeclared bank accounts with large payments from the landlady's account made into it.

However, in three interviews under caution by the fraud team he gave misleading and false statements to the Corporate Anti Fraud investigators.

He admitted all the charges against him and will now serve 15 months in prison.

Benefit thief altered bank statement

Tracey Jane Battell, from Abingdon, has admitted dishonestly failing to report changes to her personal circumstances affecting her benefit entitlement.

Battell, who fraudulently claimed more than £9,500, was caught following a tip off from a member of the public who had become aware that she was continuing to claim various benefits despite being employed.

An investigation by counter fraud officers at the Vale of White Horse District Council found that Battell had claimed job seekers' allowance, income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit that she had not been entitled to between December 2002 and October 2008, during which time she had been employed by three different organisations.

Officers also found that she had attempted to conceal evidence of her employment by using eraser fluid and pen to amend bank statements and earnings certificates!

In court, Battell was sentenced to a six-week prison sentence which was suspended for a period of 12 months. She was also ordered to carry out a 200 hours community punishment order and contribute £100 towards the costs of the prosecution. She will also be forced to pay back all the £9,500 that she fraudulently received.

Paul Howden, Revenues and Benefits Manager at the Vale of White Horse District Council, said: "This case is a clear example that benefit fraud does not pay. Through her actions this woman has received little short term benefit for an awful lot of long term pain, in the form of a criminal record, suspended prison sentence, community service, and a sizeable amount of cash that she now has to pay back."

Benefit frauds in Lincolnshire

Benefit cheats around Lincolnshire have conned councils out of more than half a million pounds.

The fraudsters have been hunted down and prosecuted for stealing the money through false claims to the district councils.

In 2009 and 2010 North Kesteven District Council prosecuted 13 people and is investigating nine more.

The prosecutions retrieved £104,000 of overpaid benefit and a further 107 sanctions believed to have resulted in £163,000 future savings, meaning the money that would have been paid out if the fraud had not been uncovered.

North Kesteven District Councillor with responsibility for benefits Stewart Ogden said: "We hope that the scale of our investigations is, in itself, a stark warning to people who are tempted to commit benefit fraud by either knowingly making a false declaration or failing to notify us of changes in their personal circumstances.

"Paying benefits to people who are not entitled not only affects those who are in real need, but also taxpayers across the District who have to carry the burden of this crime."

During this financial year the City of Lincoln Council prosecuted 19 people for fraudulent claims totalling £56,571.

Overall, it cautioned, penalised and prosecuted 73 people for overpayments totalling £300,229.

The money from successful investigations is regained by the councils but more cheats could be slipping through the net.

Recently Alan Fenn-Smith was given a year in jail for defrauding North Kesteven District Council and getting £43,000 in benefits.

West Lindsey District Council made 16 prosecutions, 79 cautions and one administrative penalty in 2009 to 2010.

So far the total overpayment recalled by the district council is £135,724.

Pointless sentence for housing benefit fraud

Mr Victor Ewah, aged 47, formerly of Clifton Road, Watford, but now of no fixed address, claimed Housing Benefit, supplying a tenancy agreement to the council with false landlord details.

An investigation was carried out by Watford Borough Council after information was received claiming that Mr Ewah was not a legal tenant. Enquiries were made to the address and also with the landlord, and this was confirmed.

In October 2009 Mr Ewah was interviewed under caution at Watford Borough Council offices by Fraud Investigation Officers. At the interview Mr Ewah admitted the document he had supplied to the council was false, but maintained that he did live at the address and pay rent to another tenant.

Mr Ewah appeared at Watford Magistrates Court where he pleaded guilty to two charges relating to supplying information to Watford Borough Council on a Housing Benefit application and also supplying a tenancy agreement that he knew to be false, with a view to obtaining benefit. The overpaid amount of Housing Benefit was £3,684.

Watford Magistrates Court made an order for compensation to Mr Ewah to repay the overpaid benefit to the court. He also has to pay £400.00 in costs to Watford Borough Council.

And now he's of no fixed address. They won't get anything back any time soon and he's got away with it.

Transsexual 'countess’ jailed for big benefit fraud

A transsexual self-styled countess has been jailed for four and a half years for conning the council out of hundreds of thousands of pounds in benefits.

Marianne Jonson, of Rawlings Crescent, Wembley, was found guilty of 23 counts of fraud at Harrow Crown Court after prosecutors demonstrated that she had falsified medical records and applications for benefits to claim £165,000 in disability benefits and accommodation in social housing reserved for disabled people.

The jury heard how Jonson, who was born Robert Duxbury and known by ten other names including Countess Mariaska Romanov, had told Brent Council she was a wheelchair-bound paraplegic needing round the clock care, pocketing £450 a week from the council for home care.

Officers from social services and housing association would visit Jonson in her home, who fobbed them off from recognising her by staying in bed in a darkened room and claiming that she had a twin sister who could walk.

However a council investigation, which was triggered after an eagle-eyed social services officer spotted Jonson walking her dogs, found that she was fully mobile, while CCTV footage from the café she ran at Roundwood Park in Harlesden also showed the fraudster on her feet serving customers.

The court heard how investigators had traced the fraud back to 1996, when Jonson had claimed income support and housing benefit on the basis of being paraplegic, yet at the same time she was creating a successful business at the café which funded a luxurious life of foreign trips, shopping and frequent beauty salon visits to get her hair and nails done.

Jonson continued to protest her innocence during the trial, claiming that the council had lost her medical records verifying her condition after a police search at her home and provided records to the court, allegedly from an eminent orthopaedic surgeon, which were found to have been based on a Google search and written after his death.

Simon Lane, head of audit and investigation at Brent Council, said: "This sentence sends out a strong message from the court to those who may be considering benefit fraud. Brent Council has carried out one of the most detailed and lengthy investigations in its history in order to bring a prosecution in this case. I am sure that taxpayers will be very satisfied with the outcome."

"This was a complex case, involving many different benefits and lines of enquiry. Jonson attempted to frustrate the investigation at every stage with petitions to the council, complaints to MPs and councillors and claims of lost evidence. The sentence imposed clearly reflects the seriousness of these crimes against the public purse."

The council is also owed back rent from the Roundwood Park café, which they say they are committed to maintaining while officers from the Parks Service and Legal Services negotiate on the exact sum.

Shaun Faulkner, head of Brent Parks Service, said: "The council is determined to keep a café open in the park as an important local amenity. We are taking legal advice relating to the current lease and will update residents as soon as we have more information.

Light sentence for almost £10k benefit fraud

North Tyneside Council has caught a woman who fraudulently claimed thousands of pounds when she had had failed to declare that she had started work.

Fiona Ann Johnson, from Whitley Bay, received an overpayment of housing and council tax benefit of £6,061.34, and an overpayment of income support of £3,375.85 between July 14, 2008, and July 19, 2009.

She had failed to report that she had started employment. After a joint investigation by the council's Counter Fraud Team and the Department for Work and Pensions she pleaded guilty to two charges.

At North Shields Magistrates Court she was sentenced to an eight-month supervision order, and the total overpaid benefit of £9,437 must also paid in full. Yeah, right.

Prison for tax credit fraud

Brian Lafferty, from Johnstone, pocketed £18,486 by claiming Working Tax and Child Tax Credits he was not entitled to.

And despite offering to repay the full amount Finch was jailed for 15 months - sent out as a warning to other would-be benefit thieves.

Lafferty was told that jail could not be avoided as he had deliberately set out with others to commit fraud by setting up a bank account and making false claims for non-existent children.

And Sheriff James Spy added that it would take years for all of the money to be repaid.

This week, Paisley Sheriff Court heard how Lafferty, of Spateston, a painter and decorator, had met others in a pub who had told him about a loophole in the system and encouraged him to get involved.

In court, he pleaded guilty on indictment to obtaining £18,486.48 by fraudulent means between April 2005 and March 2006.

Lafferty claimed he was responsible for four children, one of whom was disabled, and that they attended a local nursery for which he paid childcare costs.

John Gardner, defending, said his client had been sucked into the scheme and allowed himself to be used by others and he now deeply regretted doing so.

Sentencing him to 15 months' imprisonment, Sheriff Spy said he accepted that the accused was not the main benefactor, but nonetheless, he had been "an important cog" in the elaborate scam.

He added: "Substantial sums were defrauded from the public purse and given the nature of the fraud and the fact that it was a deliberate course of conduct, custody cannot be avoided."

Yorks benefit fraud

Steven Nelson, of Alma Terrace, in Selby, fraudulently claimed £4,175.69 in Jobseekers’ Allowance, housing benefit and council tax benefit from Selby District Council and the Department of Work and Pensions.

Nelson was interviewed under caution at Selby District Council offices, where his benefits were reviewed.

It was discovered he had been overpaid because Nelson had failed to declare that he was working. The 33-year-old will now have to pay the cash back.

On top of this, magistrates sentenced him to nine weeks in jail, but suspended the sentence for 12 months.

They also ordered Nelson to complete 200 hours of unpaid work in the community.

IoM social security workwer is benefit thief

A social security worker has been convicted of benefit fraud.

Patricia Dunne has been sentenced to 150 hours of community service and must pay £250 costs for failing to declare she lived with her partner whilst claiming Family Income Support.

Miss Dunne was suspended from her duties at the DHSS last year, and the Department has now commenced disciplinary action against her.

The DHSS says anyone caught cheating the benefit system will have the strongest action taken against them.

No jail or unpaid work for £44k fraud

Benefits thief Tazeem Bibi- Shah from Luton was found guilty by a jury at an earlier trial of fraudulently claiming housing benefit totalling £44,836.

She deliberately did not tell Luton Borough Council on three benefit application forms she was related to her landlord.

In her third claim form, she did not reveal that her husband, who was living with her, had become the owner of the claim address.

Bibi-Shah, who was given a 51 week jail term suspended for two years for dishonestly furnishing false and misleading information in respect of her housing benefit claim, has repaid £1,360 so far and has made arrangements to make further repayments to the council.

Cllr Robin Harris said: “Benefits fraud is a serious offence, resulting in a criminal record for the culprit as well as them having to repay all the money they have stolen, quite apart from the risk of a lengthy prison sentence.”

• But not when they steal a mere £44,000.
  
  These people do it for the money. So hit them in the pocket. It was money that motivated them, and a financial penalty will help to deter them.
  
  People convicted of benefit fraud who don't go to prison should have to do unpaid work.
  
  Benefit thieves should also have to repay twice what they've stolen, and should not be eligible for any further benefits – including tax credits - until they have. A confiscation order should be automatic and immediate.
  
  If you don't punish people who are convicted of an easy crime, the offence will continue to look attractive.

Benefit thief can keep the money for years

A woman who falsely claimed she was a single mother and pocketed £5,880 illegally has admitted benefit fraud.

Kayleigh Loveridge, from Northfleet, collected income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit as a single parent for a year despite living with the father of her child.

She was ordered to be electronically tagged, given a six month curfew and must repay her debt at £15 per week.

• Effectively she's got away with it. Repayment strictly by the schedule would take seven and a half years, and that's without any interest.

Councillor overclaimed benefits

A Bristol city councillor has been convicted of falsely claiming more than £3,500 in benefits.

Simon Crew, who represents Brislington East, was paid a carer's allowance for looking after his sick mother, a court heard.

But after he was elected as a Labour councillor in May 2007 he failed to tell the Department of Work and Pensions about his new role, allowances for which pushed his earnings beyond the threshold that entitled him to claim a carer's allowance.

The amount wrongly claimed totalled more than £3,550 between May 28, 2007, and October 12, 2008, North Somerset Magistrates Court heard yesterday.

Crew, of Eastwood Road, St Anne's, was convicted of failing to notify a change of circumstances affecting his entitlement to benefit and ordered to pay £1,400 in fines and costs. He has already paid back the money wrongly claimed.

The 34-year-old, who has been suspended by his party since the start of the case, had pleaded not guilty to the charge at an earlier hearing.

The court heard in November 2006 Crew applied for the benefit as he had given up his job as a welder to care for his mother, Caroline, who was suffering from emphysema and osteoporosis, for more than 35 hours a week.

But in May 2007 Crew was elected as Labour councillor for Brislington East, a role which gave him an allowance of about £750 a month. He also took up a position of council committee member for Avon Fire and Rescue, earning him another £269 gross a month.

The payments pushed Crew over the income level he was allowed to receive and to still get benefits.

But he failed to tell the DWP of his change of circumstances, and over an 18-month period was overpaid £3,554.10. The court heard receiving the extra benefits was an oversight on Crew's part, and that as soon as he was told about his mistake he apologised and paid all the money back.

Magistrates were told that Crew was sent a number of letters from the DWP reminding him of the need to notify of any change of circumstances and telling him that the income threshold had gone up.

The court heard Crew told a DWP benefit fraud investigator: "I obviously didn't pay much attention to the forms, and being busy with my mum and getting elected it was a complete oversight on my part, which I should have taken complete responsibility for and should have told you about."

Michael Bond, chairman of the Brislington East Labour branch, told the court that Crew "is a very unselfish man and is totally honest".

Mark O'Donnell, prosecuting, said Crew had failed to disclose his income deliberately. He said: "The reason you didn't is that you knew it would affect your entitlement to the money."

Defending, Martin Winter said: "Mr Crew, a man of high personal qualities, has made a mistake."

Convicting Crew, presiding magistrate Marilyn Darg said she was satisfied that he had failed to notify the DWP of his change of circumstances and that he acted out of character. Crew was ordered to pay a fine of £400 and court costs of £1,000 within 28 days.

Speaking after the case, he said he would consider appealing.

He said: "I think they recognise that there was no fraud involved and that there was no dishonesty. I just want to get back to representing the people of Brislington East."

A spokesman for Bristol City Council said: "We will study the findings once we have all the details and will review the situation."

A spokesman for the Bristol Labour group said: "We will talk about this at a senior level in the Labour group. From his moment of arrest he was suspended from the Labour party nationally and in that time has not attended any Labour group meetings."

£37k benefit theft but no jail

A man who failed to tell the benefit authorities the mother of his child was living with him, clocked up over £37,000 in fraudulent claims.

Wayne Curry, 34, claimed income support, housing and council tax benefit over four years.

He appeared at Canterbury Crown Court to be sentenced for two offences of failing to notify change of circumstances by omitting to tell the DWP and Thanet Council that his girlfriend was living with him at Nursery Close, Ramsgate.

The court heard Curry made the claims on the basis he was a single parent with one child.

Curry, of Broad Street, Ramsgate was sentenced to 12 months, suspended for two years with 100 hours unpaid work and a six months curfew between 9pm and 6am. He must also pay £5,000 compensation.

Catherine Sparks, for Curry, said it had been a turbulant relationship, there were times when they were apart and he was suffering from depression and had no network of support from family or friends.

His early claims were legitimate and when his former partner helped with child care, things between them improved and she moved in and he accepts he should have declared it.

Curry was now working, which had improved his financial situation, and no longer on benefit.

Miss Sparks asked the court to consider a suspended sentence with unpaid work.

Sentencing Curry, Mr Recorder David Tomlinson accepted there was no evidence of a lavish lifestyle or professional fraud, but warned Curry such offences usually resulted in an immediate prison sentence.

No jail for £35k benefits fraud

A Bushey benefit fraudster, who conned Hertsmere Borough Council out of £35,000, has been forced to pay the money back and undertake community service.

Margaret Kigge had failed to declare she was receiving a student bursary when she enrolled as a student nurse.

She was given an 18-month community order, for 200 hours of unpaid work.

The council also received costs of £564.50.

Kigge, 50, had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to fraudulently obtaining the £15,751 in housing benefit, £2,912 in Council Tax benefit and £16,423 in income support.

The case was brought to light by the National Fraud Initiative.

So how is repayment of £35,000 going to work?

The council is currently trying to make contact with her to make arrangements for the housing benefit to be paid back - which augurs well for the performance of the community service.

The Council Tax "is added to her current bill", we are told, and the DWP will "make its own arrangements" for the repayment of income support.

Doesn't sound like we will be saying much of our money back any time soon.

Benefit frauds in Bedford

Bedford Borough Council explain the main types of benefit fraud they experience.

Small sentence for 11 year £20k benefit fraud

A former bus driver fiddled the system to pocket £20,961 in benefits to which he was not entitled.

Over an 11-year period, Kevin Phillips, of Kingscote, Yate, scammed the taxpayer by claming money and failing to declare his wife was working.

Bristol Crown Court heard that between 1996 and 2007, Phillips, 51, was overpaid: £7,484 in incapacity benefit; £11,292 in income support; and £2,185 in council tax.

Last month he pleaded guilty to 13 counts of false accounting, one of dishonestly obtaining money transfers by deception and one of dishonestly obtaining exemption of liability.

Richard Shepherd, prosecuting, told the court that Phillips was entitled to some benefits.

Mr Shepherd said: "The dishonesty is that he failed to declare that his wife, Teresa Phillips, was a cook for South Gloucestershire Council since September 1990.

"For a council tax housing application form in 1995, under his partner's earning it is struck through.

"The same happened when he had another chance to disclose the income later on.

"However, this is not a case of simple tick-box dishonesty.

"In a further form in December 2006, under earnings saying the name of the employer of his wife, the words 'nothing has changed' were written, referring to previous reports."

Defending, Kate Brunner said: "This is quite clearly a case where a wealthy lifestyle has not been made possible by a large-scale benefit fraud. It was not professional, where an identity was created or stolen.

"As a 51-year-old of good character, he worked hard as long as he could as a bus driver until his back condition prevented him from working from 1996.

"It is of great sadness to him that he's been unable to work since then.

"He has brought up two children who are now in their 20s and both are very hard working."

The recorder Mr Don Tait said: "The benefit pit is not bottomless, and people like you claiming for what they are not entitled to, stops people who are entitled getting money."

Phillips was sentenced to eight months in prison on each of the counts, suspended for two years. He was also given a supervision order for 12 months. Not much of an inconvenience, especially as we doubtless won't get our money back.

Redditch woman sentenced to unpaid work for fraud

A Redditch woman has been sentenced to 100 hours unpaid work after appearing before Redditch Magistrates for benefit fraud. No, stop sniggering at the back, it's not Jackie Smith.

Sarah Nicholls from Oakenshaw was given the Community Order for dishonestly claiming £13,475 in Income Support, Jobseeker’s Allowance, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit for five years by failing to declare that her husband was working.

She claimed Income Support, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit in 2003, but failed to tell either Redditch Council or the DWP that her husband was working for a skip hire company. She also claimed Job Seeker’s Allowance in 2008 after her Income Support claim ended, but again failed to declare the work at that time.

Mrs Nicholls was told by magistrates that the amount overpaid in benefits was enough to result in a prison sentence, but they had taken her early guilty plea and the fact that she had begun to repay some of the overpaid benefits into account.

She was ordered to repay the overpaid Housing Benefit of £1,075 through a compensation order and pay £100 towards the prosecution costs. The remaining overpayment will be recovered by the council and the DWP.

Authorities slow to prosecute

The former partner of a murder victim will be sentenced for benefit fraud in April.

Jane Grant pleaded guilty to benefit fraud totalling £20,567 between May 2004 and October 2007. She admitted the offences in November 2007.

But the DWP didn't decide to prosecute until August 2008, and it took Torbay Council until December 2008 to decide.

The Judge said:

I think this is totally out of order. Nobody should be waiting from November 2007 until March 2010 to go before the court and this isn't the first time I have experienced this from the department.

I will ask that, if it is necessary, someone comes and explains what has happened in this prosecution.

This makes a mockery of government claims to be waging an effective campaign against benefit fraud.

No punishment for £11k benefit fraud

Martina Allen, from Leyland, fraudulently claimed housing benefit, council tax benefit and income support between September 2006 and March 2008, after failing to tell South Ribble Borough Council that she was living with her husband.

The mother-of-five received £11,351 to which she was not entitled.

Mrs Allen appeared at South Ribble Magistrates'Court after she was earlier found guilty in her absence of two offences. A warrant without bail was issued by magistrates resulting in Mrs Allen being arrested and appearing in court on Wednesday. Her excuse for not attending her trial was that her five children were unwell.

Mrs Allen was ordered to pay back the money and was handed a two-year conditional discharge.

No deterrent here.

Jail for £48k benefit fraud

A judge said it was "sheer greed" after he jailed a man who fraudulently claimed £48,500 in benefits over nine years for himself and his wife - by not declaring they had both been working as self-employed couriers.

Colin Pye, from Sporle, admitted falsely obtaining benefits and also one charge of aiding and abetting his wife to falsely claim benefits.

Norwich Crown Court heard that his wife was now suffering from ill-health and although Pye was still in full-time work he also acted as a carer for his wife.

Matthew Edwards, prosecuting on behalf of Breckland Council, said that there was not a lot of prospect of getting all the money back as Pye had been declared bankrupt.

Jailing him for six months, Judge Peter Jacobs told him he accepted Pye's claim had not started off as dishonest but after he and his wife had gained work, he said, he had "cynically" carried on claiming benefits and had obtained an "enormous amount of public money".

"This is sheer greed on your part. You are stealing from all of us. The message really has to go out to people that the courts will not tolerate this. This is on far too large a scale."

Sub-letting should be a criminal offence

I blogged several times last year on the problems of reclaiming social housing that has been sublet, and pursuing the landlords (click the label at the foot of the post).

Now the New Local Government Network says subletting should be upgraded from a civil to a criminal offence, allowing authorities to prosecute for fraud - reported here and here. They are right. The problem is big and enforcement is cumbersome.

• 92% of housing officers agreed that making the offence illegal would help tackle the problem of unlawful subletting.
  
  
• The think-tank claims that at least 50,000 people are fraudulently living in the social rented sector and depriving those in real need of housing.
   
• The report estimates at least 80% of people fraudulently living in social housing properties would not themselves qualify for help with council housing.
  
  
• Recovering all unlawfully sublet properties could save £750m, the NLGN says.
  
  
• There are thought to be around 50,000 illegally sublet council homes in the UK.
   
• A sublet property in London can earn an outlaw landlord from between £12,000 and £20,000 a year.
   
• The estimated asset value of all unlawfully sublet properties comes to £2 billion.

So yes it should be a criminal offence. With meaningful sentencing.

Tax man & banker in fraud of almost £10k

A tax man who tried to fleece the Inland Revenue by claiming almost £10,000, has to sell his house.

Steven McMaster, 35, who worked as a risk analysis intelligence officer with the Revenue, claimed £9,472 in a working tax credits scam.

McMaster, from Cumbernauld, claimed he was paying out £304 in child care charges.

His partner, Kelly Ann Prior, 29, an employee with Morgan Stanley Bank in Cumbernauld, also pled guilty to tax fraud.

Sentence was deferred until August to allow them to sell their home to pay back the Revenue.

Tell the state all about your life

The detailed nature of the benefits system requires people to tell the authorities about changes in their lives, which may be very frequent. This woman didn't and was caught out - but she hasn't suffered any real punishment.

An over-complicated and intrusive system, but she didn't get punished for breaking the rules.

Susan Gayler, from Bishop's Stortford, was found guilty of fraudulently claiming benefits from East Herts Council at Hertford Magistrates' Court. The court heard that between May 5, 2008 and March 2, 2009 she was overpaid housing benefit of £2,604 and council tax benefit totalling £605.

The overpayment occurred when Mrs Gayler failed to let East Herts Council know that not only had her earnings increased, but she had also began to receive tax credits and her partner, who was also in full time work, had moved in with her.

Mrs Gayler was given a two year conditional discharge and now has to repay both overpayments in addition to £100 towards prosecution costs.

"Sometimes life can change very quickly and it's vitally important that you let the council know if circumstances change for you," said Cllr Bob Parker, East Herts Council's Executive member for housing and health. "Benefits are available to provide a helping hand to those who need it most, and we need to ensure that this help is available for the vulnerable.

"People move house, change jobs or receive tax credits every day. But no matter how trivial it may seem you must let the council know if your situation changes because it could make a big difference to the amount you are entitled to."

Jail for £29k benefit fraud

A man who illegally claimed benefits for 10 years after tricking a Lincolnshire council into believing he was a tenant in a house he part-owned has been jailed.

Alan Fenn-Smith received both housing benefit and council tax benefit from North Kesteven District Council without revealing that he and his father jointly owned the property near Sleaford.

Fenn-Smith claimed £29,792 which he was not entitled to before the ownership of the house was discovered when his father Reginald made a separate claim for benefit.

Fenn-Smith, 42, from Kirkby la Thorpe near Sleaford, admitted six charges of making false representation to obtain benefit on dates between November 1997 and November 2007.

He was jailed for 12 months. More

£48k benefit fraud but no jail

A WANNABE nurse who swindled almost £50,000 in benefits smirked as she was told she would not be sent to prison.

Mother-of-two Christine Salter failed to tell the authorities her ex-husband Andrew Woodcock lived occasionally at the family home in Hatfield.
Prosecutor Nasra Butt told St Albans Crown Court the pair divorced in 1997, but between April 2003 and November 2006 they rekindled their relationship, with Mr Woodcock living in a camper van on the drive.

Miss Butt said: “She knew if she lived with her partner it would affect her entitlement.”

Under interview Salter claimed she was Mr Woodcock’s carer more than a girlfriend as he had mental health issues and he would come to the house to see their children, aged 12 and 16, and to collect medication.

The court heard Salter, 39, had claimed income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit, to the value of £48,063.

Tim Bass, defending, said Salter, who was due to start a degree course at the University of Hertfordshire in September, had been suspended from her role as a carer at the QE2 Hospital, due to the court case.

Mr Bass said: “She is extremely remorseful.

“It is not that they were living together as husband and wife for three years, this was not an act of dishonesty of her part, this wasn’t planned.”

But Judge Andrew Bright told Bass: “I’d call it dishonest, it’s fairly reprehensible.”

Standing with her arms crossed and with her bag packed ready for jail, Salter was told she was sentenced to 12 weeks’ jail, suspended for two years.

Judge Bright said: “The truth is your husband was living at your address from time to time and you didn’t disclose that.

“The honest thing to do is notify the change, this is dishonest and it’s a substantial sum.

“I hope you’re able to complete your work preparing for your degree, it would be a tragedy if that were not so.”

Salter, now from Welwyn, was ordered to complete 200 hours unpaid work and will be back before the court for a confiscation hearing in May, when attempts will be made to recover the loss to the public purse.

Benefit thief belatedly jailed

A benefit cheat who escaped jail so he could look after his sick wife — despite pocketing more than £70,000 — is behind bars.

Langland businessman Norman Gill appeared in court last February, where he was found guilty of fraudulently claiming income support and other benefits over five years.

He only escaped a jail term because he was the full-time carer for his sick wife. But he was made subject to a confiscation order, and was given a year to pay £200,000, after prosecutors calculated further earnings made from his criminal lifestyle.

However, after only paying around £34,000 over the past 12 months he this week found himself before Swansea Magistrates for a Proceeds of Crime Act enforcement hearing.

Mr Gill's solicitor asked magistrates for extra time to allow for the sale of his £700,000 Langland Court Road home — but after considering a counter submission from lawyers acting for the DWP and Swansea Council, Gill was sent straight to jail.

Tal Davies, investigations manager for Swansea Council, said "Mr Gill had been caught through a detailed and dedicated joint investigation. What Gill did was not a victimless crime. He was stealing from all those people who pay their council tax to help provide important public services."

Gill, aged 61, had managed a property company — N&T Project Management — and run a successful clothing retail business, Piaf Fashions, of Gorseinon, while claiming thousands of pounds worth of benefits he was not entitled to.

At one stage he was receiving up to £3,500 a month in income from the property business, while simultaneously claiming £250-a-week in benefits.

Last February, after arriving at court in a £76,000 Mercedes car, he admitted obtaining money by deception, giving false information to obtain council tax benefit and evading a liability for council tax.

But because of his "wholly exceptional" circumstances as a full-time carer for his wife, who has a degenerative neurological condition and acute multiple sclerosis, Judge Peter Heywood did not impose immediate custody.

But following the court hearing this week he has now begun a 608-day sentence — and still faces a bill for the outstanding £166,000 owed.

DWP to re-pitch benefit fraud adverts account

COI is contacting roster agencies to pitch for the business, which is currently handled by Cheethambell JWT. It is not known whether the agency will repitch.

If ministers use advertisements to try to persuade you of something, it means the public don't believe it - or there wouldn't be an advertising campaign in the first place. Sometimes the public are right - as in the case of the alarmist global warming campaign: we are not facing imminent and inevitable catastrophe, and if we were, using the car less wouldn't make a blind bit of difference.

Similarly, it's just not true that "we are closing in on benefit fraud". Let's look at some numbers.

There were 5.8m working age benefit claimants at February 2009 - this is 15.7% of the working age population!

The number of working age claimants of Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) and incapacity benefits totalled 2.60m. 736,000 people were claiming lone parent benefit.

In the year to February there were 422,000 new claims to working age incapacity benefits, and 549,000 new claims for Income Support.

These huge numbers cannot be policed effectively for fraudulent claims. They only emphasise the case for deterrent punishments for those few who do get caught. Indeed, the DWP's boast is that they have over 3,000 fraud investigators. How could they hope to police these millions of claims? They can't, of course.

Now, the Commons public accounts committee says about 200,000 cases of potential fraud were investigated in 2006/7 where the DWP considered there was a high possibility of prosecution - but only 7,483 of them were taken to court.

So even if you're unlucky enough to be investigated, and even if they find evidence against you, there is a less than 4% chance that you will be prosecuted.

So "we're closing in" is a lie.

There is a more effective way to stem the flood of benefit fraud - which is running at £3.5bn a year, not the government's official £1.1bn.

People convicted of benefit fraud who don't go to prison should have to do unpaid work. Benefit thieves should also have to repay twice what they've stolen, and should not be eligible for any further benefits – including tax credits - until they have.

Put that in the advertisements and watch the cost of benefit fraud start to fall.

Benefit fraud numbers not news

The Telegraph and others have printed a benefit fraud breakdown presumably supplied by the Conservatives from a Parliamentary Answer. But these figures have been out in the public domain and on our website for months.

True, these numbers aren't as old as the August 2007 photo of polar bears which the paper used a day or two ago, both on line and in print.

But isn't a newspaper so called because it prints stuff that's new? Maybe the Tories have only just got round to looking at the figures or couldn't read the DWP's breakdown for themselves.

But "Tories pathetic" isn't news either. Terrific, Theresa.

Benefits and bling don't add up

A drug-dealing benefits cheat has received a four-year prison sentence after being betrayed by his “bling”.

Police were tipped off by people who were suspicious of the trappings of wealth enjoyed by seemingly jobless Paul Grafton. He had a £160,000 house, changed his car 16 times in nine years and flew to Las Vegas with his wife to watch a boxing contest.

Grafton collected more than £20,000 in a range of benefits by claiming to be a single man, living alone, and out of work.

The reality was that he was living with his wife and their daughter in relative luxury – mostly funded by his law-breaking.

Police first investigated the benefit fraud and charged both Grafton and his wife in January last year.

Then they discovered the drug dealing.

It seems the benefits people had just believed what he told them. Mind you, with the number of claimants they have to deal with, who can really blame them?

Chaos in the tax credits system brings injustice

Nearly 9,000 working families have been dragged to court over the last year because of Gordon Brown’s chaotic tax credits system, reports the Daily Mail.

More than 600,000 families were overpaid by more than £1,000 in the last year. And 500,000 families earning below £15,000 were overpaid an average of £555.

In the last five years, one million families have been underpaid by the tax credit system while two million families have been overpaid more than once. A third of all payments have been calculated incorrectly and £8.4billion has been lost to fraud and error.


Only Gordon Brown the great Mc-complicator could have dreamed up such a cumbersome (or clunking) system. The DWP told him it wouldn't work but he chose to ignore their offer of help to design something better.

It doesn't work, and being centralised it is easily open to fraud.

Benefit fraud round-up

The DWP prosecuted almost 7,500 benefit fraud cases in a year - a drop in the ocean, but it still represents some 20 cases each weekday.

There's no way we can pick them all up, but here are a few of recent larger ones.

A mother of four who fiddled nearly £24,000 in benefits has been allowed to keep her freedom because it took the authorities nearly two years to bring her case to court.

A mother who sparked an armed siege at her home and fraudulently claimed £26,000 in benefits will not be deported or jailed. Bless.

A benefit cheat who claimed nearly £25,000 over eight years has been handed a suspended sentence.

A man has been sentenced to a year in jail and faces deportation after being found guilty of fraudulently obtaining benefits. William Raimondo, 24, from Gorton, used the name Fabio Simoes to dishonestly obtain Job Seekers Allowance, Housing and Council Tax Benefit amounting to £17,605. He was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment, whilst documents were obtained to facilitate his deportation back to his native Angola.

Woman judge: mothers can be imprisoned

A mother was taken to the cells in shock when she was jailed for benefit fraud knowing that her 20-month-old baby was left in a crèche.

Desiree Massey, 30, from West Wickham, admitted benefit fraud totalling more than £34,000 and was jailed for two years at Croydon Crown Court.

Court officials learned after the hearing that Massey had left her child in a crèche before coming to court but the judge said a prison sentence was necessary for the offence which she described as "mean, nasty and greedy".

Francis Lloyd, prosecuting, said the benefit cheating began in 2004 through to 2009 and included substantial over-payments of housing benefit, council tax rebates and other forms of state benefit."

When claiming housing benefit she failed to declare that her landlord was her mother and she also kept secret the fact that she had several bank accounts into at least one of which she was paying large sums of money on a fairly regular basis, in amounts varying from £80 to £3,000.

He added: "She did some of her shopping at expensive places like Harrods and Harvey Nichols."

Defending, Jonathan Reynolds said Massey, who has two teenage children as well as the baby, now deeply regretted her dishonesty and extravagance.

He added: "If she is jailed, her mother is in full-time employment and would not be in a position to care for them. An agreement has been made to repay the money at the rate of £40 a month."

Massey, who sent her two older children to a private school, was still obtaining child tax benefit and family allowances totalling £600 a month.

So they shoudn't have agreed to take repayments at the trivial rate of £40 a month. There is obviously money in the background here.

Judge Barbara Cameron told Massey: "These were mean, nasty and greedy offences which affect all honest members of society and taxpayers. You have shown no great remorse about this criminality. The public would rightly be scandalised if I didn't commit you to prison.

Well done, the Judge.

This was straight theft

Malcolm Smith, 60, and wife Kathleen, 62, admitted committing benefit fraud when they appeared at Maidstone Magistrate's Court.

The couple, from East Malling, collected £27,063 of payments they were not entitled to. They had failed to declare money inherited from Mr Smith's late father and carried on receiving the money.

The couple's solicitor said in mitigation: "Mr and Mrs Smith made a claim which was genuine from the start. They received this windfall and frittered away the money on their adoptive son, buying him top of the range laptops and holidays, and spent the rest of the money on living expenses."

The Smiths were ordered to pay back the money and £75 costs. They were each given a 60 day suspended prison sentence and are under curfew from 7pm to 7am for three months.

Trivial punishment for brazen benefit fraud

A Llanllyfni man has pleaded guilty to two counts of failing to notify Gwynedd Council and the DWP of changes in his circumstances that he knew would affect his benefit entitlement.

Michael Gerrard Roberts had been claiming Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit and Income Support since 2004. Information came to light that on 23 October 2006 Mr Roberts inherited a 1/3rd share of a property known as 3 Bryn Rhedyw – this property was later ‘let out’ to private tenants from November 2008.

Mr Roberts had been issued with two notification letters from Gwynedd Council since inheriting this share in the house – these letters reminded the benefit claimant of their ongoing duty to notify the relevant authorities of any changes that might affect their benefit entitlement and to check the calculation details carefully.

As a result of failing to promptly notify the relevant authorities of this change in circumstance, Mr Roberts was overpaid £14,894. This sum was paid in full by Mr Roberts on the morning of the hearing.

Mr Roberts was fined £500 and ordered to pay £200 towards prosecution costs – there was also a victim surcharge of £15.

• What sort of deterrent is that?
  
  These people do it for the money. So hit them in the pocket. It was money that motivated them, and a financial penalty will help to deter them.
  
  People convicted of benefit fraud who don't go to prison should have to do unpaid work.
  
  Benefit thieves should also have to repay twice what they've stolen, and should not be eligible for any further benefits – including tax credits - until they have. A confiscation order should be automatic and immediate.
  
  If you don't punish people who are convicted of an easy crime, the offence will continue to look attractive.
  
  Theresa May, please note. Some local authorities think benefit fraud costs each household £80-£100 a year. It's probably nearer £150-£175.

No prison for £63k benefit fraud!

A Seaford woman pocketed £63,385 in benefits between March 2003 and October 2008 after claiming she was a single mother when she was living with her partner.

Faye Sayers was sentenced to 12 months in prison suspended for two years at Hove Crown Court.

She was also ordered to carry out 240 hours unpaid work in the community and pay £300 costs.

The court was told she claimed income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit on the basis she was a single parent living with one child. But she failed to declare she was living with her partner.

Benefit cheat had seven jobs

A benefits cheat cooked the books by having seven jobs, five of them as a chef, while claiming thousands of pounds from the public purse.

Roy Gledhill was working as a catering manager for Lancashire County Council when he was caught by benefit fraud investigators.

The father-of-two filled in an official form to claim benefits stating he could walk no more than 25 metres without discomfort and needed help getting in and out of bed and with dressing and cooking.

He claimed £12,337 in disability living allowance and incapacity benefit over two years.

Gledhill, from St Annes, pleaded guilty to failing to notify the authorities there had been a reduction in his mobility and care needs and that he was working.

He was sentenced to do 120 hours unpaid work for the community, put on 12 months supervision and ordered to pay £75 costs by Blackpool Magistrates.

More

£20k benefit fraud effectively unpunished

A Redditch man has been given a 15 month prison sentence suspended for 12 months after pleading guilty to benefit fraud.

John Ruddy was sentenced to three months in custody for each of the five charges relating to dishonestly claiming a total of £20,222 in housing and council tax benefits between May 2002 and October 2008.

The fraud was uncovered by Redditch Council after a data-match indicated Mr Ruddy had failed to disclose that he had funds above the limit for claiming benefits.

Magistrates said the offences were very serious and Mr Ruddy could have faced prison, but they had taken into account his early guilty plea and previous good character.

Mr Ruddy was ordered to pay the council the £17,110 still owing through a compensation order and £150 costs.

• These people do it for the money. So hit them in the pocket. It was money that motivated them, and a financial penalty will help to deter them.
  
  People convicted of benefit fraud who don't go to prison should have to do unpaid work.
  
  Benefit thieves should also have to repay twice what they've stolen, and should not be eligible for any further benefits – including tax credits - until they have. A confiscation order should be automatic and immediate.
  
  If you don't punish people who are convicted of an easy crime, the offence will continue to look attractive.
  
  Theresa May, please note. Some local authorities think benefit fraud costs each household £80-£100 a year. It's probably nearer £150-£175.

Suspended sentence for £31k benefit fraud

A benefit cheat who swindled £31,130 received a six-month jail sentence suspended for two years and was ordered to do 120 hours unpaid work.

Edna Donohue, from Runcorn, failed to notify the DWP and Halton Council that she was living with her partner, Anthony Walton.

Donohue had claimed benefit as a single mother and received housing and council tax benefit since January 2004. She admitted that she was in a relationship with Mr Walton when she was interviewed in June 2009.

She confirmed that he had lived with her at her home in Rosam Court from October, 2003 to October, 2004 and returned from April 2005 until now.

She was ordered to repay benefits to which she was not entitled plus £150 costs.

No jail - you're a mother

Claire Monarch, from Whitburn, was paid income support and housing and council tax benefits on the basis that she was a single parent.
However, she had her husband living with her within weeks of making the claim for benefits in October 2006. She claimed over two years, and the overpayment was £11,204.


Judge Guy Whitburn sentenced her to a two-year community order with supervision.

Judge Whitburn said: "You are 31, you have never been convicted of any criminal offence, you have four children and you are expecting a fifth. In the circumstances, it is quite out of the question for me to even consider locking you up."