A 48-YEAR-old Midland mother-of-two has avoided a prison sentence after she admitting fiddling over £30,000 in benefits.
Judge Amjad Nawaz told Shakila Rauf it was a serious fraud on the public purse and he added: “Your offending shows you knew what you were doing.”
Rauf, from West Bromwich, admitted ten charges of benefit fraud and she was given an eight-month jail term suspended for 15 months.
She was further placed on Supervision by the Judge at Wolverhampton Crown Court and ordered to pay £600 towards the costs of the prosecution.
Mr Mark Jackson prosecuting said Rauf dishonestly claimed £30,070 over a seven-and-a-half-year period from November 2002 and April 2010.
He said she submitted multiple fraudulent claims for Housing and Council tax benefits in respect of two different address in the West Bromwich area.
Then, after she had been interviewed under caution in relation to fraudulent claims at the one address, she submitted a further illegal claim in respect of the second address. The claims were fraudulent from the outset, said Mr Jackson, because Rauf submitted claims on the basis that neither she or her children were related to her landlord when they were her brother-in-law, her brother and his wife.
Mr Benjamin Nicholls, defending, said the offences had cost Raul, who was making an attempt to repay the money on a monthly basis, her good character.
Rubbish. Shakila Rauf never had a good character in the first place.
1 comments:
Anyone reading the article in the Birmingham Mail could easily gain the impression that Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit are never payable if the claimant and landlord are related. It is also unclear whether the claims made at the second address were for the same period as the first address.
The only direct bar to Housing Benefit in this context is where the liability is to a "close relative" AND where the landlord also "resides in the dwelling" (regulation 9(1)(b) of the Housing Benefit Regulations 2006 and also the Housing Benefit (Persons who have attained the qualifying age for state pension credit) Regulations 2006).
A "close relative" is defined as a parent, parent-in-law, son, son-in-law, daughter, daughter-in-law, step-parent, step-son, step-daughter, brother, sister, or where one is one member of a couple, the other member of that couple (regulation 2(1) of the same regulations cited above). A Social Security Commissioner has determined that "half" sisters and brothers fall within the terms "sister" and "brother".
If the landlord does not reside in the dwelling, a claimant is not automatically disentitled to HB, even if related. However, other matters will be open to consideration including, but not limited to:
1) is there a genuine liability? If so,
2) is the agreement on a commercial basis? If it is,
3) has the liability been created to take advantage of the HB scheme?
In the case of "1", no liability = no HB. In the case of "2" and "3", HB legislation deems that the claimant SHALL be treated as if s/he is not liable to make payments in respect of the dwelling, even if there is such legal liability.
It's worth noting that where a landlord is not residing in the dwelling, NONE of the above considerations affect Council Tax Benefit. Even if there is no entitlement to Housing Benefit, CTB may well be properly payable.
Taking into account the information given in the article and the HB provisions, my *guess* is that there was, in reality, no liability between the claimant and the landlord in the case blogged - i.e. a "sham". But there isn't really enough in the article to be sure.
However, there is no clue at all as to why Council Tax Benefit was found to be wrongly claimed and it *could* be that the defendant should not have been prosecuted for this element. Again, there isn't enough information to go on.
"Benefits Bod"
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