A 61-year-old woman is starting a seven-month jail term after she defrauded Havering Council of more than £25,300 in housing benefit.
Anigal Hemasiri claimed the benefit for herself and her daughter after moving into a property in Southdown Road, Hornchurch in 2005, according to a Havering Council statement.
Her son and his wife were already living at the four bedroom home.
Hemasiri claimed the property was owned by Prasantha Kurera, who also lived there, but council investigators discovered it was jointly owned by Mr Kurera and her son, Sanjeeva.
“Council investigators also found that while all the household utility bills were being paid from the same bank account, which the benefit payments were paid into, there was no evidence that any rent was being paid,” a council spokesman said.
Hemasiri pleaded guilty to her indictment of dishonesty in May. She was sentenced to seven months in jail at Basildon Crown Court after Judge Alan Saggerson said only immediate custody would be appropriate.
The judge said Hemasiri had been fraudulent from the outset, allowing her family to live rent and mortgage-free by freeloading off the state.
The council will be seeking to recover the overpaid benefit.
And that's part of the problem. Councils should be able to get the necessary order as part of the same hearing, and then press on with getting our money back, with interest if possible.
2 comments:
Longish post - intended to be informative and constructive.
"Councils should be able to get the necessary order as part of the same hearing, and then press on with getting our money back, with interest if possible."
As the law currently stands, it isn't actually legall possible to get ALL aspects dealt with by way of criminal proceedings - irrespective of whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty.
Something not widely appreciated (even by some LAs and some DWP officers!) is that once a "civil" decision is made that a clmt is entitled to less benefit AND that there is merit in criminal proceedings, two concurrent legal systems are engaged AND, courtesy of some rather wishy washy drafting of benefits legislation, the standards and approaches between the two differ substantially.
Concurrently with criminal proceedings, a clmt is entitled to challenge the decision(s) of the DWP/LA through the "civil" dispute system by way of EITHER requesting a revision of the decision(s) or directly appealing to a Tribunal. Criminal proceedings are conducted on an adversarial basis whilst Tribunal proceedings are conducted on an inquisitorial basis. The standard of proof for the criminal case is "beyond reasonable doubt"; for the Tribunal it is the "balance of probability".
It doesn't take a genius to work out the potential for conflict. It can (and does) lead to cases where a Tribunal appeal can be successful whilst the clmt is still legitimately convicted of an offence. I am also personally aware of a small number of cases where a conviction has been achieved on the basis of "X" and, later, the Tribunal has found that "X" was wrong - that leaves the possibility of convictions being quashed (quite legitimately).
My personal view is that where fraud is alleged in social security benefit / tax credit cases, the civil appeals system should automatically be engaged by way of an Upper Tribunal Judge being seconded to assist the Criminal Court. The idea is to avoid the massive confusion that can be created by two separate jurisdictions considering the same matter. It is arguable that such an approach would also save money (no need for separate hearings).
As an aside, it doesn't help with different overpayment regimes for 1) HB/CTB; 2) tax credits; 3) most other social security benefits. The only common denominator is that once an overpayment is legally "recoverable", actual "recovery" of that overpayment is then discretionary. Confiscation is a separate issue. As the law currently stands, interest cannot lawfully be added to benefit overpayments (R v Kensington & Chelsea RBC, ex parte Brandt [1995] 28 HLR 528, QBD), although Court costs can.
Whether the arrival of Universal Credit will, in reality, deal with any of these issues remains to be seen.
"Benefits Bod"
Thanks for this - I will pull it out into a separate post so that it doesn't get missed.
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