Benefit fraud

Request for input

2012-02-02T11:39:00.000Z

Received a request in the name of Liz Bloor (whom I hadn't heard of) asking

I'd like to talk off the record to a working benefits officer or someone who has left their job in the last year.

She says she is doing some initial work for a television programme looking at benefit fraud and asks me to give this contact email address.

I'd be interested in feedback.

Hartlepool claimant hid inheritance

2012-02-02T00:01:00.012Z

A benefit swindler pocketed more than £28,000 despite getting just over £36,000 in inheritance following the death of his grandmother.

Hartlepool man Duncan Ward carried on claiming housing and council benefit despite coming into a £36,830 “pot of gold” from his grandmother’s estate.

It comes as town mum Lisa Robinson illegally claimed £24,734 in income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit despite being given £60,000 inheritance and being paid £129 a week for working as self-employed collections agent.

By law, benefits claimants with savings of more than £5,550 must declare this cash or it may affect their entitlement to housing benefit and council tax.

Benefits chiefs say that while they want everyone elligible to claim what they are entitled to, they will not tolerate people scamming the system.

A court heard Ward illegally claimed £28,395 over four years.

The 42-year-old, who appeared at Hartlepool Magistrates’ Court on crutches and accompanied by his mother, was given a suspended prison sentence.

Chairman of the magistrates’ bench Peter Heron told him: “I believe custody is appropriate because of the high level of the amount involved.

“But we also believe we can suspend that because of your previous good character and recommendation from probation, early guilty plea and co-operation.”

Tony McNab, prosecuting on behalf of Hartlepool Borough Council, told the court that Ward had been receiving income support since January 2003.

He also received housing and council tax benefit and was made aware on numerous occasions he must advise of any changes in his circumstances that would affect his claim.

Mr McNab added: “Details were received from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) in December 2010 that Mr Ward may have undeclared capital.

“Bank statements were obtained that showed Mr Ward received just over £25,600 on November 10, 2006, and a further amount of just under £11,230 on May 24, 2007.

“Further bank statements were received that showed £25,000 being transferred in or around November 13, 2006.”

The court heard Ward was interviewed and he admitted he had received money from his grandmother’s estate.

Mr McNab said Ward had repaid the council tax element and income support parts of the over-payment.

Ward admitted failing to notify the council and the DWP of a change in circumstances between November 10, 2006, and November 23, 2010.

Neil Taylor, mitigating, said: “My client’s original claim was not fraudulent - it only occurred when he didn’t disclose his inheritance. He was always entitled until the pot of gold came in.”

He said Ward had paid some of the money back “as soon as he possibly could” but added: “His position was made difficult because of debts he had accrued.”

Mr Heron sentenced Ward to 12 weeks in prison, suspended for 12 months and a 12-month supervision order, with £350 costs.

What punishment is that? What consequences of his action does he experience?

Woman sentenced for £20k employment fraud

2012-02-01T00:01:00.010Z

A Bromsgrove woman has been sentenced to a 12 month community order, including 200 hours of unpaid work, by magistrates after pleading guilty to benefit fraud.

June Gilhespie was convicted at Kidderminster Magistrates Court on January 23 on two charges of failing to inform the Department for Work and Pensions and Bromsgrove District Council that she was in paid employment, while she claimed benefits from both organisations.

The court heard she continued to claim £13,628 in housing and council tax benefits from Bromsgrove District Council and £7,000 in Incapacity Benefit from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) over a two year period from November 2009.

She was sentenced by magistrates to a 12 month community order including 200 hours of unpaid work, and ordered to pay £100 in costs. The overpaid benefits will be recovered.

Pensioner benfit thieves

2012-01-31T00:01:00.004Z

Leicester pensioner Maria Magdelene Abell, who claimed housing and council tax benefits totalling £19,399 despite having more than £30,000 in bank accounts, has been given a 12-week suspended prison sentence.

More

Another pensioner, Sohan Singh, from Slough, has been jailed for 12 months after dishonestly claiming housing and council tax benefit, incapacity benefit, income support, and pension credit totalling £69,533. The offences spanned the period December 2000 to November 2008 and included Singh making false statements on his claim forms by providing a false name, date of birth, national insurance number and failing to declare his identity as Charnjit Singh.

He also failed to declare savings accounts under this name, and that in November 2008 he dishonestly failed to declare his earnings from employment at Grundon Waste Management under the name Dhami Charnjit Singh.

More

Peter Moran, from Runcorn, who wrongly claimed £17,428, has been given a suspended prison sentence for failing to declare his occupational pension. He received a 12 week custodial sentence suspended for 12 months, a 12 week curfew from 7pm to 7am, and was ordered to pay £150 costs and repay £17,428 to the council.

More

Many frauds bring man £37k wrongful benefits

2012-01-30T17:36:00.000Z

A Weymouth man has been warned he faces jail after admitting benefit fraud charges totalling nearly £40,000.

John Harvey, pictured, of Dorchester Road, admitted eleven fraud charges in an appearance at Dorchester Crown Court.

The offences included two charges of fraud by false representation relating to 57-year-old Harvey applying for Job Seekers’ Allowance in the name of John Le Rouze and failing to declare that he was in receipt of an occupational pension under the name of John Harvey.

He also pleaded guilty to charges of fraud by failing to disclose information relating to a failure to declare to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that he was working and fraud by false representation involving an application to the DWP for a National Insurance number.

Harvey admitted a further five charges of fraud by failing to disclose information relating to failures to disclose to the DWP that he was working and failing to inform Weymouth and Portland Borough Council that he was claiming benefits and in receipt of a pension when claiming housing benefit and council tax and failing to disclose bank accounts.

He also admitted a charge of possession of an article for use in fraud relating to a UK passport.

The offences took place between July 2004 and February last year and prosecutor Rufus Taylor said they involved a total loss of £37,973.20. The case was adjourned for a pre-sentence report and Harvey was bailed to return to Dorchester Crown Court to be sentenced on February 22.

Judge Roger Jarvis told the defendant: “You have admitted a large number of serious matters stretching over a significant period of time and plain it is the court will be thinking of custody by way of punishment.”

Another councillor benefit fraud?

2012-01-30T00:01:00.001Z

The leader of Broxtowe Borough Council has been charged with benefit fraud of more than £45,000.

Milan Radulovic is accused of failing to declare council allowances on an incapacity benefit claim form.

The Labour councillor is due to appear in court on 16 March.

Mr Radulovic was council leader from 1995 until 2007 - the same year he received an MBE - and resumed the position last year.

In 2005, he won a six-figure payout from the Queen's Medical Centre for suffering serious health problems after an operation.

The politician was left almost blind in one eye from keyhole surgery complications to remove a gallstone.

Medical staff went ahead with the procedure despite Mr Radulovic requesting open surgery.

Councillor's benefit fraud - 1

2012-01-29T21:22:00.000Z

A councillor who pleaded guilty to three counts of benefit fraud totalling nearly £3,000 has been given a curfew and ordered to carry out unpaid community work.

But Tony Brice, 67, who represents the Lindley ward on Kirklees Council says he is determined to appeal and to retain his position on the council despite his Conservative group disowning him last year when the 21-strong group voted to expel him.

Magistrates in Halifax heard that Brice had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing in Dewsbury to obtaining £2,977 in benefits to which he was not entitled.

For the prosecution, Samantha Lawton, said the offences related to non-disclosure of information beginning in May 2010 regarding pension income, an HSBC Isa account and a savings account.

This was compounded in July that year by his failing to notify the authorities that there had been a change in his financial circumstances – namely he had been receiving a second pension of £67 a month for five months.

Then in October he failed to declare an increase in income from a pension which had risen from £392 to £442.

Ms Lawton said he had a number of opportunities to notify the council of the changes during 2010 but failed to do so.

“The application was false from the outset and had a good knowledge of the benefits system,” she told the court.

Bill Rawstron, defending, said Brice from Huddersfield, had not been a member of the council at the time the offences were committed after losing his seat that year and one of the most important factors in mitigation was his client’s poor mental state at the time.

“At the time the defendant was charged with matters of deception and to his dying breath he will deny that he behaved dishonestly,” he said, adding that Brice was originally facing three allegations of dishonest benefit fraud though the dishonest aspect was later withdrawn.

Mr Rawstron said a doctor’s report revealed him as “a man who was going through a greatly stressful and difficult time” and both members of the public and members of other political parties had provided character references saying that ‘this is not a dishonest man but a man of industry and determination’.

“He is still in employment,” he added. “This is not a case of dishonesty. The offences were committed at a time when he had lost his seat.

“He is a man in his sixties who is of impeccable character and clearly a man of integrity. He acted not in character and in a way that was unfortunately due to stress-related medical problems.”

Chairman of the bench George Salter told Brice he would have to pay £1,908 in costs at £159 a month for 12 months.

He imposed a curfew on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights from 10pm to 10am and sentenced him to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work for the benefit of people at large.

Afterwards, Brice said: “I am not very happy with the sentence.”

Mr Rawstron added: “We are actively considering an appeal against the sentence.”

Brice’s future on the council is uncertain – it is expected he will have to appear before Kirklees Council’s Standards Committee at a date yet to be fixed.

Brice, who was first elected to represent Lindley in 2004, was suspended from the Conservative Party in October last year when the allegations came to light.

In December he was expelled from the Tory group on Kirklees Council and Brice said he would stay on as an independent councillor.

Tory group business manager Coun Christine Smith said at the time the decision to expel him was made on a permanent basis and was agreed by all members, reflecting the seriousness of the charges.

Regional benefit variations

2012-01-28T18:51:00.000Z

Labour call today for local benefits caps rather than one national figure. Of course they want more bureaucracy:

That is why we need a local cap and should have an independent body like the Low Pay Commission to determine the level at which it is set for different areas. It could advise on other necessary policies like regulating the private landlords who have done so much to drive up the costs of housing benefit.

Which leads IDS to ask them:

I would be grateful if you could clarify whether you are proposing setting benefit rates on a regional basis.

Indeed, Byrne has written that "all that £500 a week might get you in central London is a one-bedroom apartment, [but] in Rotherham, Yorkshire it would get you a six-bedroom house".

Several conclusions could be drawn, such as don't make taxpayers subsidise benefit claimants for rents in expensive areas over anything but a short term.

As the debate continues, bear in mind that benefits are not paid with government money. The government does not have any money. That money belongs to the people.

More benefit thieves

2012-01-27T00:01:00.006Z

A Barry woman has admitted £24,000 single person fraud.

Angela Lowery from Hartlepool admitted £17,815 single parent fraud. Information from the national benefit fraud hot-line had suggested she was living with her husband, who was working. She was given 24 weeks prison suspended for 12 months with probation supervision and 150 hours community work.

Janice Lee, also from Hartlepool, got away with a sentence of six months in prison suspended for two years, plus 140 hours of unpaid work, after pleading guilty to six offences of fraudulently claiming £38,009 in tax credits. Another single parent fraud.

Jodie Browning, from Batchley, admitted continuing to claim housing benefit and council tax benefit totalling £12,797 by failing to declare that she had started work and allowing her husband to claim incapacity benefit incorrectly by hiding the fact that she was working from him. How did she manage that?

Mubbashir Alam, from Deeplish, provided the council with a faked letter purporting to be from a solicitors’ firm in an attempt to help his partner obtain housing benefit payments for a fictitious tenancy. He was sentenced to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work and ordered to repay full costs of £506 to the council.

New policy on "anonymous" comments

2012-01-26T14:18:00.000Z

A number of anonymous commenters have been trying to claim the moral high ground recently. The latest is this (reproduced unedited):

And not everyone who is eligible for benefits is aware and makes a claim, so there are savings elsewhere.

See, it's actually costing 'us' not very much taken in context, but your bitter one-man crusade marches on blindly.

Imagine if all your spiteful passion could be directed at a worthy target!

You know full well grouping all these fraud claims together with your spurious fag packet calculations is ignoring the *whole* picture and simply serves to demonise the rest of the benefit receiving population. I imagine you take pleasure imagining cripples being attacked in the street. It is disingenuous to pretend your blog is anything other than a petty hate site.

"Fraud's only bad if a poor person does it."

I suppose the splenetic personal vituperation comes within the realm of free speech, unfounded though it is. But I draw the line at such self-righteousness being peddled anonymously, which has become the usual way.

So the policy on anonymous comments is now that the anonymous posting facility is for benefit system employees. Other posters are expected to say who they are. This appears on the comments screen.

Government employee jailed for £25k benefit fraud

2012-01-26T12:09:00.000Z

A government tax credits adviser has been jailed after admitting a £25,000 benefit fraud.

Michelle Patten was employed by HM Revenue and Customs to give expert guidance to claimants.

But the mother-of-three from Gosforth, Newcastle, ignored the regulations she knew so well to cheat the system.

Patten was overpaid by up to £9,000 a year in tax credits after failing to disclose she was living with her partner, Richard Pembleton. She even enjoyed family holidays abroad while the swindle brought in the extra cash.

By the time her five-year fiddle was finally uncovered, the loss to the public purse had reached £25,293, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

Now the 38-year-old is behind bars after admitting fraud between 2006 and 2011.

Imposing a six-month jail term, Judge Michael Cartlidge said: “I don’t think the public would understand if I did not pass an effective prison sentence.”

Patten, who had not been in trouble before, was an experienced and respected adviser when she began the fraud. She claimed tax credits on the basis that she was still single.

But from 2006 onwards she had been living as a couple with Mr Pembleton, the father of her youngest child. Year after year, Patten kept up the lie by signing annual declarations confirming her circumstances were unchanged. Only when suspicions last spring triggered a raid at the couple’s home was the fraud finally revealed, the court heard.

Jason Pitter, prosecuting, said: “Evidence was seized in the form of financial documents for Mr Pembleton, family photos showing him with the defendant and both of them with the children as well as family holiday photographs.

“The prosecution case is that given her employment, she would have known from the time they were living together as a couple she had a requirement to declare that and deliberately failed to do so.”

Anne Richardson, defending, said Patten felt “great shame”, took full responsibility and, having lost her job, would struggle to find similarly paid employment. Miss Richardson added: “She is acutely aware of what she has done through her own stupidity.”

Stupidity? Knowing dishonesty.

She urged the court to suspend any prison sentence to reflect Patten’s previous good character, remorse, and guilty plea at the first opportunity.

But Judge Cartlidge said: “What significantly aggravates the case is that throughout this period she was working for the revenue as a tax credits adviser so she knew very well how wrong her declarations were.”

Council stuck with legal delay

2012-01-26T00:01:00.003Z

An Acton man who created five aliases to fraudulently claim more than £174,000 in benefits has been sentenced to three years in prison.

Brahim Lounnas appeared before Isleworth Crown Court on Monday, 16 January 2012.

Lounnas was brought before the courts after a lengthy investigation led by Ealing Council which uncovered one of the worst cases in the borough's history.

Over six years Lounnas used five false identities to make fraudulent housing and council tax benefit claims for addresses both in Ealing and Hammersmith and Fulham. He used dozens of bogus documents, including bank cards and statements, payslips, tenancy agreements and national insurance numbers to support the false claims.

Councillor Yvonne Johnson, cabinet member for finance and performance, said: “This is one of the worst cases of its kind. This was a very slick fraud on a massive scale so I’m pleased the judge agreed he should be jailed. I hope other would-be fraudsters will get the message that we will catch them and bring them to justice.”

Lounnas, who has been remanded in custody since he was charged in February 2011, pleaded guilty to 13 benefit fraud offences. He was sentenced to serve three years in prison for each count, with the sentences to run concurrently. The time served on remand will be deducted.

Not long before he's out, then.

The council is also seeking a confiscation order to recover the stolen money and a hearing is expected to take place in July.

The presumption should be in favour of a confiscation order being made at the criminal trial.

How much is benefit fraud costing us?

2012-01-25T09:00:00.002Z

The government pretends benefit fraud is costing us £1.1bn annually. But I argue that the real figure is probably at least £5.5bn a year.

Teaching assistant appeals against jail for benefit fraud

2012-01-25T00:01:00.014Z

A teaching assistant who cheated the taxpayer out of £29,709 over three years has been jailed for four months.

Clare Dominguez-Dona, 37, who worked at Our Lady of Lourdes Primary School in Leigh, pocketed the cash in housing and council tax benefit after lying about being a single parent who rented her home.

Her fraud was uncovered when investigators from Southend Council discovered she was married and owned her house in Westcliff.

She was jailed after pleading guilty to two counts of dishonesty at Southend Magistrates’ Court and will have to repay the cash at a rate of £100 a month.

Land registry records showed Dominguez-Dona and her husband had bought their home in October 2004 for £230,000. But the mum-of-four continued to claim housing benefit to supplement her “rent” until December 2007, when she landed the teaching assistant job. She also claimed she received income support.

After council officers uncovered the fraud in June last year, she also admitted making a false statement on a housing benefit form in 2006.

Magistrates told her she had committed a serious offence over a long period of time and aggravated matters by making the false statement.

Dominguez-Dona has appealed against her sentence and is due to reappear in Basildon Crown Court on February 3.

Data matching nabs benefits thief

2012-01-24T15:48:00.000Z

A Barking man who concealed savings of just under £24,000 when he applied for housing and council tax benefits was handed a four-month suspended jail sentence.

Suntharamoorthy Ponnampalam must wear an electronic tag for four months and pay Barking and Dagenham costs of £1,104.14. The jail sentence was suspended for 12 months.

Ponnampalam, 56, submitted three benefit claims to the council in April 2006, March 2007 and October 2007 and failed to declare that he had just under £24,000 in capital in three Barclays bank accounts. In his first claim, he denied having a bank account, though declaring a Lloyds TSB bank account in the subsequent claims.

A government data match alerted the council’s benefit fraud investigation team to the irregularity. The total overpaid benefit was £11,224.

After an investigation, Ponnampalam pleaded guilty to four counts of dishonestly making false statements or representation contrary to section 111A(1)(a) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 at Havering Magistrates’ Court on January 6 this year. He was sentenced on January 13.

Benefit thieves 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.

Everyone convicted of benefit fraud who doesn't go to prison should have to do unpaid work.

Benefit thieves should also have to repay twice what they've stolen, and should know they won't 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.

Sunstantial benefit frauds in Ealing

2012-01-24T00:01:00.000Z

More Ealing benefit frauds have been exposed and the culprits brought to justice.

Former Ealing resident Kashif Khan was found guilty of six accounts, including obtaining a council flat by deception.

Khan made false statements on his application, failed to declare he was joint proprietor of a property in Southall and falsely declared he was being made homeless. The financial loss to Ealing Council totalled £45,392.

He was sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court to 10 months’ imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, and also 300 hours of unpaid work to be completed in 12 months.

A former resident of Southall, Audre Henry, fraudulently claimed £7,425 in housing benefits and £5,287 in Jobseekers’ Allowance.

She used her sister’s identity to make the fraudulent claims between July 2007 and November 2009.

Henry, an overstay from Jamaica, who was initially detained by the UK Border Agency, was sentenced at Isleworth to five months concurrent on each count, minus 74 days which had already been served.

A father and son fraudulently claimed £22,115 in housing benefit from Ealing, a further £27,286 from Hounslow, and £2,826 in council tax benefit.

Whilst living at addresses in Ealing and Hounslow, Ragbeer Singh failed to notify either borough that his landlord, Pritpal Dhingra, was in fact his father. His family members had always occupied both properties and there was no commercial tenancy at either address.

Singh was sentenced to 10 months and Dhingra to eight months.

The huge scale of social housing fraud

2012-01-23T00:01:00.010Z

A good news story in Sunday's papers was that as many as 160,000 social housing tenants in London alone may be subletting their properties.

Why is this good? This blog has argued that social housing fraud is the wickedest form of welfare fraud. There's more than the financial dimension: there isn't enough social housing available, so every detection gives a poor family in temporary accommodation a better life..

Freeing up sub-let properties would be the cheapest and quickest way to make more social housing available. There are 8 million council or housing association homes in England and 1.8 million households on the waiting list. If (improbably) 20% of these homes right across the country proved to be sublet, that would free up 1.6m homes.

So this news is potentially massive.

Where do these figures come from? It's our old friend data matching again - still much underused. HJK fraud investigators matched 27,000 tenants – the entire tenant roll of two councils and four housing associations – against mortgage and credit databases.

They found "indications of fraud" – such as the tenants having mortgages, utility bills or active credit at other addresses – in 5,300 cases. That's almost 20%. Yet the government's official estimate is that less than 1% – 50,000 properties in the whole country – are fraudulent.

In 2,120 cases (8% of the total) HJK found "red" indicators of fraud, where the registered tenant had a mortgage, bank account, active credit or utility bills at another residential address.
In 3,180 cases (12%) they found "amber" indicators of fraud – active credit, bank accounts, Sky TV or utility bill records held by a person with a different surname at the tenancy address, but no such activity there by the registered tenant. (The "amber" figure excludes, as far as possible, legitimate residents with different surnames, such as live-in partners and family members from previous relationships. HJK excluded such people from its totals by data-matching them with the registered tenants.)
Mr Kleinberg of HJK said that there was also a third category of properties where the tenant could never be contacted by the council or where neighbours or maintenance men had reported suspicions. If these were included the figure of suspect tenancies could be nearer 25% in some areas.

The government said in August it might make sub-letting social housing a criminal offence and has now opened a consultation exercise, with replies invited by 4 April. Labour's John Healey had already proposed this back in March 2010.

In addition to these measures, local councils would be given more powers to investigate incidents where such fraudulent behaviour is suspected through an increased amount of access to data from banks and utility companies. As it is, councils can request data but organisations can refuse to provide it. However, if these new measures were indeed put in place, then organisations would have to comply with council requests.

So what needs to happen?

The coalition must criminalise sub-letting of social housing fast. It should be uncontroversial and it's well overdue.
As well as having a deterrent effect, that will make it quicker and cheaper for councils to reclaim sublet social housing and rent it to those at the top of the housing list.
Once central government has belatedly fulfilled its part of the bargain, councils must get aboard this particularly immoral fraud. Indeed, the government has committed £19 million to tackle the problem of tenancy fraud, but Mr Kleinberg says the money was not ring-fenced and some councils have not spent a penny of it on tackling the problem.

Update: The Mail has picked up the Telegraph story this morning.

Welcome for social housing fraud proposals

2012-01-20T00:01:00.005Z

Housing bosses in Chorley have welcomed proposals to make tenancy fraud a criminal offence.

Under the plans, ministers have suggested that tenants who move out of their home and hand the keys to someone else could face a prison term and a fine of up to £50,000.

Chorley Community Housing said the move is designed to stop the problem of tenancy cheats charging market rents on low cost homes and pocketing the difference whilst sometimes also committing benefit fraud.

Presently, landlords can only take court action to recover the property and have no power to make the tenant pay back any profit they may have made in committing the fraud.

CCH, which last year ran a Catch A Cheat programme in partnership with Chorley Council and other housing associations in the town, say the proposal is a major step forward.

Richard Houghton, director of operations at CCH, said: “These proposals will hopefully act as a deterrent to anyone thinking that committing tenancy fraud is a good idea. At the moment, some people may see it as a victimless crime.

“That the Government is minded to legislate on this issue shows that it isn't.”

It should certainly be a criminal offence and the sooner the government brings that in the better.

Two Sale benefit thieves sentences

2012-01-19T13:00:00.004Z

Trafford Council has secured two convictions for benefit fraud amounting to more than £16,000.

In the first case, Reginald Vickers, aged 66, from Sale, was convicted of dishonestly obtaining housing and council tax benefit amounting to £10,552.

Vickers pleaded guilty to failing to report a change in his circumstances to Trafford Council’s benefits departments once he began receiving an occupational pension in June 2008 and had also received a lump sum of £30,500 at the same time.

As a result he was overpaid benefits between June 2008 and June 2011. He was sentenced at Trafford Magistrates’ Court on January 13 to four weeks custody suspended for two years and ordered to pay costs of £275. In addition, Vickers is required to repay all monies that he falsely claimed from the council.

The second case, heard on the same day, involved Sandra Schofield, aged 64, also from Sale.

Schofield was convicted of dishonestly obtaining pension credit and housing and council tax benefit amounting to £6,946. She pleaded guilty to failing to report a change in her circumstances to the DWP and Trafford Council’s benefits departments after her partner had moved in with her. As a result she has been overpaid benefits between January 2010 and March 2011.

She was sentenced to four weeks custody suspended for two years and ordered to pay cost of £375. She must also pay all the money back to the DWP and the council.

More about benefits for expats

2012-01-19T00:01:00.002Z

At least 10,000 British emigrants are enjoying life in the sun on sickness benefits of up to £94 a week.

This could be costing the taxpayer almost £1million a week in a time of austerity.

Claimants in the UK are being forced to take new tests to see if they really are as sick as they say.

But officials admit that 4,000 older recipients of the benefit living in Spain, Jamaica and elsewhere will be able to continue drawing the handout until they reach retirement age.

This is because Iain Duncan Smith’s Department of Work and Pensions will not re-test the entitlement of those reaching State Pension age before 6 April 2014.

The Government is forced by EU rules to pay certain benefits even if the recipients eventually move abroad.

In addition, Britain has reciprocal arrangements with other countries, including the U.S. and Jamaica, to keep up expatriates’ handouts.

It emerged last month that expat pensioners receive £13.4million a year in winter fuel payments – even though many live in sunnier climes where they seldom need to turn on the heating.

But the cost of incapacity payments going abroad dwarfs that of winter fuel payments – costing up to £49million last year.

And even though some of the remaining 5,800 expat claimants will be reassessed, ministers will have to rely on foreign GPs to carry out the assessments, raising questions over whether they will be as thorough as the independent doctors hired by the DWP to carry out the assessments in Britain.

The highest rate of incapacity benefit is £94.25, meaning that up to £940,000 is going abroad every week to claimants.

If the allowance was initially claimed in Britain, anyone is entitled to continue claiming after moving to any of 30 European countries or their overseas territories.

Under European law, benefits acquired in one member state must be paid to those who move to another. The deal also includes Norway, Liechtenstein, Iceland and Switzerland – none of which is in the EU. The UK also has reciprocal arrangements with some non-European countries.

Tory backbencher Priti Patel said: ‘These figures are deeply alarming. Huge sums of public money are going to people unjustifiably, and it is all down to EU regulations.

‘British doctors will be strict in reassessing claimants, but we need an assurance that doctors in other countries will be just as strict.’

Emma Boon, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: ‘It is ridiculous that EU rules prevent our government from making our own choices about whether to give benefits to those who have moved away.’

A spokesman for the DWP said those who are genuinely too disabled or ill to work are entitled to the new Employment Support Allowance under EU rules.

If someone from the UK now living abroad has paid enough in National Insurance contributions, he or she can receive contribution-based ESA subject to the same checks as someone living in the UK.

He said: ‘Incapacity Benefit is an outdated benefit which is now closed to new claimants. We are currently reassessing everyone of working age on IB, whether they live in Great Britain or abroad.

‘People from the UK living abroad will only be entitled to ESA if they have paid sufficient National Insurance contributions. If they are found to be fit for work they will have their benefits stopped.’

He said those emigrants on Incapacity Benefit will be reassessed for ESA using exactly the same criteria as those in Britain. The DWP estimates that there are around 10,000 on IB abroad, the majority in Europe with many in Spain and Ireland.

About 5,800 living overseas are expected to be reassessed for ESA between February 2011 and April 2014. As in the UK, those who are approaching 60 or more will not be reassessed because they are deemed to be too old to seek work.

UK-based sickness benefit recipients will be assessed by DWP-approved doctors. But the DWP will have to rely on foreign GPs to carry out assessments for those based abroad.

Tory MP Philip Davies said: ‘I applaud the Government for getting to grips with Incapacity Benefit. But we mustn’t allow people to escape having to be reassessed by moving abroad.’

Blue badge fraudster gets driving disqualification

2012-01-18T00:01:00.005Z

After pleading guilty at West London Magistrates' Court to using a counterfeit disabled blue badge, a resident in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea was ordered to pay a £515 fine and disqualified from driving for six months.

Mr Mehran Dahesh had received a caution from Council enforcement officers in 2009 for the same offence.

Hm, that worked well. Why would you let such a fraudster off with a caution?

However his choice to ignore this warning and continue breaking the law through the use of yet another blue badge has caused him to lose his licence for six months.

Good!

Undercover surveillance in January 2010 by Council officers found that Mr Dahesh was displaying a counterfeit badge to avoid having to pay for parking. When approached, Mr Dahesh immediately handed the badge over stating "it's not real", but then ignored the officer's questions and quickly drove off. The badge was put together using several other badges and pictures, and enabled Mr Dahesh to escape detection for months.

New disabled badges have been issued from the beginning of this year and have state of the art anti-fraud measures to prevent fraudsters from being able to copy them without detection. They have similar security features to driving licences and a new database will allow enforcement officers to detect lost or stolen and counterfeit disabled badges in seconds.

Lengthy legal process slows recovery

2012-01-17T15:00:00.002Z

A fraudster has been ordered to pay more than £13,000 after falsely claiming benefits while selling racy underwear online.

Charnwood Borough Council issued civil proceedings to recover cash after discovering Graham Hearn was running web-based Pleasurewear Ltd while claiming Job Seeker’s Allowance and Housing Benefit.

Hearn, from Loughborough, claimed £10,827 in housing benefit between December 2003 and August 2006 but failed to tell the Council of a change in his circumstances.

He was ordered to pay back a total of £12,128 for the debt and interest, together with Council costs of £1,042 – a total of £13,170.

Councillor Jenny Bokor, Charnwood Borough Council’s Cabinet member for Revenue, Benefits and Customer Service, said: “This Council takes benefit fraud extremely seriously and will always seek to reclaim money which has been illegally stolen (sic) from the taxpayer.

“In this case, our officers worked diligently to expose Hearn’s fraud and our legal team then put together a strong case to reclaim the stolen money.

“It was a good team effort and demonstrates our commitment to ensuring fraudsters do not get away with it. Let this case serve as a warning to others that crime doesn’t pay and that we will always take action.”

The debt recovery case was heard at Leicester County Court in August 2011 but details have only now been released as his permission to appeal was refused on January 5, 2012.

Criminal proceedings were also taken and on May 18 2009, Hearn pleaded guilty to three counts of dishonesty in relation to the overpayment claim.

The legal process is way too drawn out. Debt recovery orders should be issued on conviction.

"It was a disgusting thing to do"

2012-01-17T13:02:00.000Z

A benefit cheat from Stevenage claimed incapacity benefit while holding down three different jobs, a court has heard.

Paul Smith, 63, had been legitimately claiming the benefit when he stopped working as milkman in 2002 after suffering a heart attack.

But prosecutor Imran Khan said he failed to tell the Department of Work and Pensions that he had started working again three years later.

He worked as a delivery driver in 2005 until 2006, then at a Wilkins’ greengrocers in Stevenage from May 2006 to December 2009, and as a delivery driver between December 2006 and August 2008.

When questioned by the Department of Work and Pensions, Smith blamed his wife saying she did the paperwork.

As a result Mrs Dawn Smith was interviewed and told the authorities she thought her husband had been allowed “a honeymoon” period of six months when he could work and receive benefit.

Smith admitted benefit fraud when he appeared at St Albans Crown Court.

Defence barrister Martin Lahiffe said the amount of benefit he received could not be agreed.

The prosecution said the overpayment was £22,142, but he said it was only £12,000.

The amount will decided at a Proceeds of Crime hearing at a later date, where prosecutors may try to seize property owned by Smith through the courts.

He said Smith would be fit to carry out unpaid work.

Recorder David Miller told Smith: “You brought shame on yourself and your family.

“You cast suspicion on your wife because of what you told those investigating your fraud.

“You were perfectly able to work. It was a disgusting thing to do. The welfare system is designed for people genuinely in need.”

He passed a one year community order with a 16 week curfew between 8pm and 7am seven days a week.

He must also carry out 240 hours unpaid work.

"Human rights" and state benefits

2012-01-17T00:01:00.011Z

Not surprisingly, Cait Reilly's ploy of taking legal action against the Government under the Human Rights Act because she had to do some shelf stacking at Poundland in order to keep her JSA benefit isn't popular with Daily Mail readers.

She wants us to keep paying her £53.45 to do voluntary work at a museum. Miss Reilly’s solicitor, Jim Duffy, said the practice contravenes article 4 (2) of the Human Rights Act, which states: ‘No one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labour.’

Of course no one is making her do forced labour. With Labour toughening its stance in response to voter opinion, the days of something for nothing in the welfare field look numbered, and it doesn't seem unreasonable for recipients of JSA to do some placement stints. It may be boring and even demeaning - but you're getting other people's money. It's not forced or compulsory - you don't have to take our money.

Mr Duffy, from Public Interest Lawyers in Birmingham, said:

This Government has created – without Parliamentary authority – a complex array of schemes that allow Jobcentres to force people into futile, unpaid labour for weeks or months at a time.

We have no problem with Government schemes that increase the chances of people gaining employment – that is key to combating the current economic crisis – but these “work for benefit schemes” have been proven in other countries to do nothing other than increase the cycle of unemployment and poverty.

Cait wasn’t told when she went to the open day that she was committing herself to work for free. She has been taken away from a voluntary role useful to help her break into the career she would like to have, simply to stack shelves.

There seem to be questions about what she was told or not told. But we can't all have fulfilling work. Cait can do as much agreeable voluntary work as she likes. But not with an indefinite subsidy from taxpayers.

Jail for £58k benefit thief

2012-01-16T00:01:00.001Z

A benefits cheat pocketed almost £60,000 over 17 years after falsely claiming his wife was a carer for their disabled daughter.

Bolton Crown Court heard how, in 1989, George Field submitted an application for carers allowance in his wife’s name, without her knowing.

In reality, their daughter was being cared for by her partner, who was already claiming carers’ allowance for looking after her.

The fraud resulted in Field being paid £39,102 he was not entitled to.

David Toal, prosecuting, said Field also went on to also wrongly claim income support even though he and his wife were working, bringing him an extra £19,829.

Mr Toal said when Field, aged 55, from Great Lever, first submitted a claim for income support in July, 2004, it was genuine.

But when his wife, Alice, got a job as a part-time care assistant at a residential home in October, 2005, earn- ing up to £730 a month, he carried on claiming.

Between July, 2010, and December, 2010, Field also had a job.

Field, who has a criminal record for theft and dishonesty, pleaded guilty to false accounting, failing to notify a change in circumstances and making false representation to obtain benefit.

He had a criminal record, but seemingly no one checked up over all those years.

Thomas McKail, defending, said Field was a labourer until he developed epilepsy. He added Field had to pay for six funerals, had young children to support and turned to benefit fraud out of necessity.

Field was jailed for 15 months.

Justice fumbled as £47k thief gets a tap on the wrist

2012-01-13T00:01:00.002Z

A Birchington woman who fraudulently claimed almost £50,000 in housing benefit has been handed a suspended prison sentence and has been electronically tagged for four months.

Thanet District Council, working in partnership with the Department of Work and Pensions, brought the case against Suzanne Campbell. She had been receiving housing benefit initially for a property in Westgate, then she moved to Margate.

On her application forms, she stated that the landlord for both addresses was Gary Ledude, but investigations showed that he was in fact the father of her four children. On the application forms, Ms. Campbell had to declare whether the landlord is related to herself or children, as this affects someone's entitlement to claim housing benefit. On each occasion she claimed housing benefit, she ticked the “no” box in answer to this question.

As a result of this, she was paid £47,537 of housing benefit between February 2002 and June 2010 that she was not entitled to claim. She was interviewed under caution and stated that she did not read the question properly on all the application forms she completed. She did not think she had done anything wrong, but admitted she was dishonest for not completing the forms correctly.

She pleaded guilty to benefit fraud when she appeared before the Judge at Canterbury Crown Court. They handed out an eight month prison sentence, suspended for two years. Ms. Campbell was also given a curfew for four months, from 8:00 pm to 6:00 am each day, which will be monitored by an electronic tag. She will also have to pay back the benefits she fraudulently claimed and the court costs.

Cllr. Michelle Fenner, Cabinet Member for Business Services, said:

This case shows how not being honest about your circumstances can result in massive overpayments.

Indeed it does, Michelle, it shows how fraud can continue unchecked for eight years.

As a result of this fraud over many years, a huge amount of money has been taken out of the taxpayers’ purse.

And we're highly unlikely to get any back. There should be a way to join the landlord in such prosecutions, giving access to the house as a source of repayment, even if through a charging order activated when the property is eventually sold.

Meanwhile, notice that the only sanction on them is that she has to spend every evening in for four months - hardly a severe penalty for stealing £47,000.

Knowsley Council stamps on benefit fraud

2012-01-12T00:01:00.001Z

In a sign of its determination to eliminate benefit fraud, Knowsley Council has prosecuted Letitia Tuck from Huyton. While living with her employed partner, she had claimed Council Tax Benefit, Housing Benefit and Income Support on the basis that she was a lone parent.

This had gone undetected since 2002. In that time she got her hands on £81,459.

She got six months inside, so presumably she'll be out in three or four. Doubtless we've seen the last of the money.

Well done, rigorous Knowsley Council.

Councillor pleads guilty to second benefit fraud

2012-01-11T00:01:00.001Z

A key supporter of Tower Hamlets' extremist-linked mayor, Lutfur Rahman, today pleaded guilty to three counts of dishonestly claiming housing and council tax benefits – the second time she has been convicted of such offences.

Councillor Shelina Akhtar failed to turn up in court at the start of the case today, claiming that she was unwell and unfit to stand trial, but the judge dismissed her claim and issued a warrant for her arrest. When she finally appeared this afternoon, Judge Platt told her: “I make you no promises today. This is the second time you have committed fraud against the state regarding benefits to which you are not entitled. The court needs to know more before deciding on the appropriate sentence.” Akhtar cheated the taxpayer of just over £1100 in benefits. She will be sentenced next month.

The prosecutor, Michelle Fawcett, said: “She is a local councillor and the case, therefore, was more serious. This defendant has previous convictions for identical matters.”

In 2010 Akhtar, of Blackwall Way, was handed 100 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay £250 costs after being found guilty of dishonestly claiming jobseeker’s allowance, housing benefit and council tax benefit during a case at Thames Magistrates’ Court.

Akhtar is one of eight Tower Hamlets councillors who were expelled from the Labour Party after deciding to support Lutfur, who was sacked as Labour's candidate for mayor for his close links to an extremist Muslim group, the Islamic Forum of Europe. Lutfur took the Telegraph to the Press Complaints Commission - and lost – after we described Akhtar as a "Lutfur Rahman councillor." He tried to claim that she was not connected to him. (He has also tried to claim that he is not linked to extremism – he lost that complaint, too.)

Interestingly, Ted Jeory has discovered that even after her first conviction and her arrest on this second set of charges, Akhtar claims in her official council engagement log to have attended 34 hours of "group meetings" of the Rahman-supporters and 38 hours of "mayoral engagements" with Mr Extremist Links himself.

Large families and welfare benefits

2012-01-10T00:01:00.016Z

Unusually for the Mail, its piece about large families on benefits is politically correct.

Someone has made a convenient FoI request, which reveals that there are 190 families with at least ten under-18s where one or both of the parents gets an out-of-work benefit. These families are eligible for £61,183 a year in state support – much more than they could hope to earn if they entered the job market.

Nearly 100,000 people on benefits have four or more children, with more than 900 claimants having at least eight.

The way the Mail puts it is that the statistics show the extent to which enormous handouts "condemn such families to a life on benefits", because it would not be worth their while to take on work. Well ho hum, how many of them manoeuvred themselves into that position by having more children after they had gone onto benefits?

IDS wants to impose a benefits cap of £26,000 per family, we are told, but the LibDems want a higher figure.

There's surely scope for a rule that once a household has been on benefits for 12 months, no new children will attract extra benefits. If you want to increase your family once you're on benefits, get work.

Some couples in work have to save up before they can afford a baby. Why should it be easier for couples on benefits?

Stunning figures on jobseekers' allowance

2012-01-09T00:01:00.007Z

A JSA pilot has produced stunning results:

20 per cent of those ordered to take part in four-week community projects stop claiming immediately and another 30 per cent are stripped of their benefits when they fail to turn up.

What's going on?

Officials suspect many of those who stop claiming benefits are working in the black economy and would rather lose their welfare than give up their undeclared earnings.

You don't say. Officials consider the results so "striking" that they are going to roll the scheme out nationally ... to affect up to 50,000 people. The placements are typically with charities or involve some kind of community service, such as helping to maintain parks.

It will cost £5m to arrange the placements and administer them, but if these numbers are replicated it will quickly pay for itself.

In 2010/11 £4.5bn was paid in JSA. Fraud was estimated at 4.1%, or £180m. Clearly we can't extrapolate a fraud rate of 50% across the board, but it doesn't seem unreasonable to start by doubling the current estimate of JSA fraud. It may well be much more.

A house in three countries - Mail on Sunday

2012-01-08T09:00:00.001Z

It looks like the kind of home owned by a successful businessman or influential politician.

But this imposing five-bedroom house, in one of the most affluent districts of Lahore, Pakistan, is understood to be owned by a man being investigated for benefit fraud in Britain and Denmark.

The opulent two-storey home, worth up to £300,000 in the country’s second-biggest city, is the subject of an investigation by the Department for Work and Pensions and Danish authorities into Hassan Gilani.

Investigators want to know how the father of three, who has allegedly claimed nearly £292,000 of benefits in both Britain and Denmark during the past decade, could afford to keep such a property.

His Pakistani address was included in a file given to the DWP by the Danish authorities following a tip-off that he did not live in Denmark but had been receiving state support since 2002.

Mr Gilani has allegedly been paid huge sums after saying he was disabled and could barely walk, while claiming to live in both countries.

But his neighbours in Pakistan say he is regularly seen strolling round the upper-class neighbourhood of Model Town and that he often spends several months at a time at the house to escape the cold English winters.

Last week, this newspaper revealed he has received up to £110,000 in housing benefit from the British taxpayer since 1997.

He has also been paid up to £70,000 in disability allowance in the past decade, while banking about £112,000 of benefits in Denmark.

Locals in Lahore told how Mr Gilani, 58, who lives in a taxpayer-funded three-bedroom terrace house in Croydon, South London, bought land for the house in the early Nineties.

In the years that followed, he turned it into one of the smartest homes in this tree-lined street, five miles from Lahore. When The Mail on Sunday first visited the property last week, Mr Gilani’s name, and that of his wife Iffat, 58, were painted in Urdu on a stone plaque outside the house.

But when we returned the following day, after making our initial enquiries, the plaque had been reduced to a pile of rubble on the ground. Only the name Syed Zahur Hussain Gilani, believed to be Mr Gilani’s brother, remained on the entrance to the house.

After identifying a photograph of Mr Gilani, one neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: ‘I often see Hassan around the area. He is a good man and always stops to talk about his family and life in general.

‘He is a regular at the local mosque and spends most of his time there if he is not at home watching TV or walking in the park with his family.

‘He was here in the spring last year, but I haven’t seen him for a while. He usually likes to come in the English winter as well because he says the weather is so bad he cannot stand it.’

Local men at the mosque, less than 500 yards from his front door, said Mr Gilani has often spent many hours chatting to friends and praying.

One said: ‘Hassan is a good man with a very good family. He is always smartly dressed in traditional clothes and gives generously to the mosque.’

Some locals who claimed to know Mr Gilani said they believed he owned the house with his brother, who is also a regular visitor.

When members of the Gilani family are staying at the house they have up to four staff, including a cook, a driver and a gardener.

Other Model Town residents include bankers, judges and senior government workers and almost all of the houses in the area are gated, many with armed guards outside the high-walled homes.

The smart self-contained town is a world away from the bustling markets and shanty towns nearby.

Most blocks have their own mosques at the end of the road and two former prime ministers, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, have also kept homes in the area.

A man who was at the house last Thursday when a Mail on Sunday reporter called said he lived there with his wife and daughter and that they were responsible for looking after the house and the Gilani family when they were in Pakistan.

He said: ‘Hassan was supposed to come in November last year, but he didn’t for some reason.

‘He usually spends the winters here, sometimes for a few weeks at a time, but I don’t know when he will be back.’

Mr Gilani, originally from Pakistan, faces up to seven years in jail in Britain if he is found guilty of misleading social services to claim state support. He could also face charges of fraud in Denmark.

It is alleged he was paid incapacity benefit in Britain from 1999 to 2002, totalling £4,900 a year, and also banked an estimated £112,000 of benefits in Denmark since 2002.

Mr Gilani, seen earlier this month strolling to the bank and a branch of Western Union near his Croydon house, has also received up to £2,700 a year of income support in Britain since 2002 and as much as £5,000 a year in disability living allowance since 2005.

Mr Gilani has told social workers in Britain and Denmark that he can barely walk and has severe difficulty with basic tasks such as eating and dressing himself.

It is believed Mr Gilani may have also rented out his taxpayer-funded, three-bedroom apartment in Copenhagen while he has not lived there, netting up to an extra £800 a month.

A DWP source in Britain said: ‘Investigators will certainly want to know how Mr Gilani has been able to afford to keep such a large house in Pakistan with no income other than his benefits. This will all form part of any case against him.’

On Friday, a new paper-shredder was delivered to Mr Gilani’s home in Croydon.

However, when The Mail on Sunday knocked at the door, there was initially no answer.

After five minutes a man opened the door and asked our reporter who he represented.

When details of the house in Lahore were put to him, he said the family had made a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission and were advised not to talk to reporters.

Asked if Mr Gilani was at home, the man refused to answer.

Light sentences for substantial benefit frauds

2012-01-06T11:11:00.000Z

Irene Lofthouse from Oldham claimed almost £35,000 over nine years in incapacity benefit, income support, and Disability Living Allowance while she was working. She received a four-month sentence, suspended for two years, will be subject to supervision by the probation service for 12 months and faces a three-month nightly curfew.

Meanwhile, Shahgufta Ahmed, from Peterborough, was overpaid £21,793 over a six-year period, after failing to tell the DWP she was working. The court ordered her to pay the money back, carry out 100 hours of unpaid work in the next year and pay £100 costs.

Norwich overpays £4.7m housing benefit in one year

2012-01-05T00:01:00.017Z

A Norwich MP blasted the amount of housing benefit wasted as “shocking” after the Evening News revealed £17m was overpaid by City Hall in three years.

The figures, released after a Freedom of Information request, show £4.7m was overpaid by Norwich City Council last year – enough to cover the black hole in the authority’s budget for the next financial year.

Housing benefit fraud has totalled just under £1m since 2008 while last year the council clawed back £108,136 and caught 51 housing benefit cheats.

Mistakes and delays on the part of housing benefit claimants in telling the council that their details had changed were the chief cause of the waste, rather than council error.

If they were honestly mistaken delays, would the money not be returned to the council?

Norwich South MP Simon Wright said:

It is shocking to discover that the scale of overpayments over the last three years have been so high.

It is generally accepted at most councils there will be some degree of error.

The issue is whether the people (claiming benefits) are aware that they need to inform the councils.

There are things that councils can do and have to do at a time when deficits need to be reduced.

The amount of benefit paid is affected by income, savings, and the number of people living in a house, but delays by claimants in telling the authority their circumstances had changed meant 6.6pc of the £69m housing benefit cash, which comes from the government but is distributed by the city council, was overpaid last year.

That £4.7m is by one council on one benefit in one year.

Mr Wright called on councils to work with credit rating agencies to find out what claimants’ true circumstances are.

Norwich North MP Chloe Smith said the amounts wasted were “very concerning”.

She said: “I would like to see the council deal with this. It shouldn’t be beyond the council. I am sure staff are trying their very hardest but clearly more needs to be done.”

At Broadland Council £1,141,200 was overpaid in the same period – £1,058,600 caused by mistakes from claimants and £82,600 by mistakes from the council, while fraudsters took £311,200.

At South Norfolk Council where £76,314 was paid in error and cheats took £782,193, over half of the money has been recovered.

All the councils said they were attempting to claw money back and were punishing false claims through courts, sanctions, warnings and fines.

Data matching should have nipped this in the bud

2012-01-04T11:03:00.000Z

A Stretford man must complete 100 hours of unpaid work and pay £375 in costs after he was found guilty of benefit fraud.

Thomas Heald was convicted of dishonestly obtaining job seekers allowance and housing and council tax benefit.

The 35-year-old pleaded guilty at Trafford Magistrates’ Court on December 23 to failing to report changes in his circumstances and making false statements to the Department for Work and Pensions and Trafford Council’s benefits department.

Having failed to declare he had started work as a cook in a care home, Heald was overpaid benefits amounting to £3,672 between September 2009 and July 2010.

Heald will now have to repay all the money he falsely claimed.

Council counter fraud officers were alerted to this matter following a data matching exercise.

This highlighted how Heald was receiving payments of working tax credits, indicating he had started work but failed to report this to anyone.

It's morally wrong for the state to put this temptation in the way of the poor. The state has the information, and the right thing to do is for the state to apply the information as a matter of routine and not leave it to individuals to take the initiative.

Discovered benefit fraud leaps in the East Riding

2012-01-04T00:01:00.002Z

Benefits claims worth more than £550,000 which should not have been paid have been uncovered in East Yorkshire.

Between October 2010 and September 2011, East Riding Council identified people responsible for unpaid council tax and wrongly claimed housing benefit worth £556,731.

That is discovered fraud only, and only council tax & housing benefit. It compares with £265,508 from October 2009 to September 2010.

It comes after investigators introduced new techniques and saw an increase in tip-offs.

Jeff Taylor, East Riding Council's principal fraud investigation and enforcement officer, said: "We're getting a lot better at catching people and members of the public don't like it when people are cheating the system, especially not if they, themselves, are struggling to make ends meet."

Mr Taylor said despite the increase in the value of wrongly paid claims being uncovered, he believed the problem was on the increase because of the current financial climate.

"There is more pressure on people and maybe some of them decide they won't declare the bit of work they are doing or the change in their circumstances," he said.

East Riding investigators now use data to compare information with other councils as well as accessing individual employment records, bank accounts and information held by the Department for Work and Pensions.

Mr Taylor said: "We can access people's undeclared bank accounts which helps us find out if they are in work or not.

"In the past, it might have taken us a few months to get that kind of information. Now, it comes through much more quickly."

The council also has a dedicated hotline set up so that people can identify benefits cheats.

Mr Taylor said: "Every time we put out a release about someone being prosecuted for benefit fraud, our hotline gets people calling up.

"Sometimes, people cheating the system have been boasting about how they are getting away with it and that's how they get caught."

Criminals and the welfare state

2012-01-03T00:01:00.008Z

One in three people claiming unemployment benefit is a convicted criminal, reports the Mail. This the first time a government has looked at how many benefit claimants have a conviction.

Taxpayers are funding around £2billion a year in out-of-work payments to nearly 1.3million people with criminal records, including £1.2billion to those on Jobseeker’s Allowance.

The rest of the money is paid to offenders who claim income support as lone parents or receive Incapacity Benefit and its replacement, Employment Support Allowance.

The Mail's interpretation is that "the figures lay bare the degree to which an ‘underclass’ that drifts in and out of criminal activity is using state handouts to bolster its income, while often continuing a life of crime". Or, of course, ex-criminals may find it very hard to get a job.

Two years after being released from prison in 2008, 47% of offenders were on out-of-work benefits and three out of four offenders made a new claim to an out-of-work benefit at some point between 2008 and 2010 - figures that could support either interpretation. There's probably truth in both.

Of the 1.2million total claims for Jobseeker’s Allowance open on December 1, 2010 in England and Wales, 33% were made by offenders.

26% of the 4.9million people claiming some sort of out-of-work benefit were offenders who had received at least one caution or conviction between 2000 and 2010. Of those, 5% of the total claims were made by offenders who had been released from prison over the past ten years.

Astonishingly, 51% of offenders sentenced or cautioned in England and Wales in the year ending November 2010 had claimed one of the main out-of-work benefits at some point in the month before they were sentenced.

This gives another angle to a Labour opposition trying to forge a distinctive policy on benefits. Could Labour emerge more hawkish on benefits than the coalition? We'll have to wait and see.

Ed Miliband discovers benefit fraud

2012-01-02T12:00:00.015Z

Miliband was not comfortable discussing benefit fraud on a visit to a Sunderland factory last year, but the Mail reports that he is now to condemn the ‘evil’ of scroungers who refuse to work.

He will admit Labour blundered by not doing enough to combat the work-shy.

And he will say that people should get state handouts only if they have paid their taxes first.

It will fall to Liam Byrne to admit that Labour allowed the benefits system to spiral out of control.

Step forward hopeless minister Yvette Cooper. What did you do on your watch?

"A source" told the Mail:

Canvassing during the last Election, Mr Byrne was shocked by doorstep fury among Labour voters at benefit spongers – and Labour’s failure to tackle the problem.

Decent Labour voters see their neighbours lie about all day and get benefits while they are working their socks off, and say, “Why should I vote Labour when they let this happen?”.

Evidently Byrne is not expected to set out specific plans to deal with benefits abuse - he wants the credit for the policy stance without the squeals from the chattering classes - but is thought to favour much tougher curbs to force the work-shy to take jobs or lose their handouts.

He is studying schemes in the U.S. and Australia where much tougher sanctions are applied.

His speech will stress that the benefits system must focus on the needs of the ‘hard-working majority’ and should ‘not pay out before people have paid in’

Claiming benefits in two countries - Mail on Sunday

2012-01-02T09:00:00.000Z

A British father of three is under investigation for an alleged £292,000 benefit fraud in both the UK and Denmark.

Hassan Gilani, 58, has received up to £110,000 in housing benefit on top of £70,000 in disability allowance from the UK taxpayer since 1997.

He also banked an estimated £112,000 of benefits in Denmark since 2002 after claiming that he can barely walk and has severe difficulty with basic tasks such as eating and dressing himself.

But last week he was pictured in trainers and a blue duffel coat, walking unaided to a branch of Barclays near his £250,000 taxpayer-funded home in Croydon, South London.

On another occasion he left his house with a crutch before tossing it into the front seat of his green Mercedes and driving to a local branch of Western Union, a money transfer company used to send funds abroad.

His alleged fraud came to light after Danish authorities received a tip-off in September that Gilani had not been seen at his flat in the Nordvest district of Copenhagen for more than two years but was continuing to receive state benefits.

Investigators alerted British authorities after they traced him to a three-bedroom house in Croydon – more than 850 miles from the Danish capital. Records show Gilani receives the maximum amount of disability benefit in the UK.

He was paid incapacity benefit from 1999 to 2002, totalling £4,900 a year, after convincing the social services that he could not work due to a disability.

In 2002, Gilani was transferred on to income support – a benefit for people unable to work due to ill- health – getting up to £2,700 a year.

And in 2005 he was placed on one of the maximum levels of disability living allowance, netting him a further £5,000 annually.

Fraud investigators from the Department for Work and Pensions launched their own investigation last month and will now examine all his benefit claims since 1996. Gilani, who is originally from Pakistan, faces up to seven years in jail in Britain if he is found guilty of misleading social services to claim state support.

Danish authorities believe he may have rented out his apartment in Copenhagen while claiming the Danish equivalent of housing benefits and disability living allowance.

This would have netted him the equivalent of about £1,000 a month in benefits and potentially up to £800 a month in rent he was not entitled to because the property is owned by the local authority.

Gilani appeared on the electoral roll in Denmark in 2002, moving into a rented three-bedroom apartment in the Nordvest district. He was able to claim up to £860 a month in incapacity benefit after once again convincing the authorities that he had a disability which prevented him from working.

In 2005, he began to claim housing benefit in the country, adding about £250 to his monthly benefit allocation.
Mr Gilani walks from his three-bedroom Croydon house unaided to where investigators tracked him down

It is believed he continued to claim both benefits until October this year when they were stopped by Danish authorities after the tip-off.
Benefit cheats cost the British taxpayer more than £1 billion a year. If offenders are found guilty of fraud, they are required to pay back the money they have stolen.

Records show Gilani's household received £110,000 from Croydon council in housing benefit and council tax relief from 1996 to 1997 and 2003 to 2011. He stopped receiving housing and council tax benefits in Croydon for a six-year period.

Under the Government's right-to-buy scheme, he was able to buy his rented three-bedroom council house in 1997 for £19,000, which he is believed to have sold for a significant profit later.

The housing benefit paid since 2003 relates to another house where he currently lives. Between 1997 and 2003, he was on the electoral roll at addresses in Birmingham and Cardiff.

Investigators from the DWP will now look at whether Gilani claimed housing benefits at these other addresses after purchasing the council house in Croydon.

He could face further charges of fraud if he used benefits from a different local authority to pay his mortgage.

Sources say that Gilani and his wife, Iffat, 58, will also be investigated over the purchase of another property in 2004, less than three miles from their Croydon home.

According to Land Registry records, the three-bedroom semi-detached house is owned by his daughter, Saira, 29, who would have been only 22 at the time it was bought for £245,000.

When The Mail on Sunday called at the house, an Eastern European woman answered the door and said she was renting the property through a local estate agent.

Last night it was revealed that the DWP is also investigating Mrs Gilani on suspicion of fraudulently claiming disability living allowance and housing benefit over the past three years.

The couple, who married in South Glamorgan in 1978, have two daughters, Saira and Sana, 27, and a son, Saklan, 33. Sana could also be investigated after it was revealed that she receives carer's allowance for looking after her mother.

Robert Oxley, campaign manager at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: 'It's outrageous that a suspected benefit cheat has allegedly been able to play two welfare systems so easily and for so much taxpayers' cash.'

When The Mail on Sunday visited Gilani at his home he confirmed his name before saying that his name was Mohammed and he did not know anyone called Hassan. When asked if he was fraudulently receiving housing and disability benefits, he refused to answer and briskly walked away from his house.

The DWP refused to comment on Gilani's case but a spokesman said: 'Benefit thieves are costing the taxpayer almost £1 billion a year. We will tackle this problem on the front line but also at the root by reforming the system to make it less open to abuse.'

Curfew orders for Worcester benefit thieves

2011-12-30T00:01:00.001Z

People in Worcester have been reminded of the dangers of committing benefit fraud after two people were prosecuted for not declaring changes in their circumstances.

Nick Jefferies, head of South Worcestershire Revenues and Benefits Shared Services, said it was not worth trying to play the system and that people that chose to would be prosecuted.

His warning came after two city residents pleaded guilty to charges of benefit fraud at Worcester Magistrates Court on December 8. Tasha Hawkins, 41, of Alma Street, pleaded guilty to two charges of failing to disclose that she was living together as husband and wife with a partner - the father of her two children - at two separate addresses in Worcester between March 2009 and June 2010. During that period she received a total of £12,708 in overpaid benefits. She was sentenced to a six-month curfew order covering the hours of 7pm to 7am, and ordered to pay £100 costs.

Michael Drinkwater, 57, pleaded guilty to three charges, two of which related to his failure to disclose two periods of paid employment between July 2009 and October 2010. The third charge was over his failure to disclose that his care and mobility needs had decreased. As a result he claimed £10,010 in overpaid benefits. Drinkwater, who now lives in Frenchay, Bristol, was sentenced to a curfew order of 20 weeks covering the hours of 7pm to 7am, and ordered to pay £100 costs. Both Hawkins and Drinkwater have also been ordered to repay the full amounts that were fraudulently claimed.

Councillor attacks benefit fraud sentence

2011-12-29T00:01:00.011Z

A fraudster who claimed benefits despite her partner having £80,000 of savings in the bank has escaped with just a curfew.

The sentence was slammed by one councillor, who called it “outrageous”.

Joanne White, 36, of Sunnedon, Vange, failed to tell Basildon Council her partner had the huge stash of savings.

Between February 2009 and August 2010, White fraudulently claimed £8,000 in housing benefit and a further £1,500 in council tax benefit.

At Basildon Magistrates’ Court, she admitted failing to notify Basildon Council.

She was given an eight-week curfew, banning her going out between the hours of noon and 10pm.

But the sentence was condemned as too lenient by Phil Turner, Basildon Council’s cabinet member for finance and resources:

Any reasonable person whose partner has £80,000 in the bank would not continue to claim benefit they know they are not entitled to.

But it never fails to amaze me how such criminal behaviour can warrant such a slap on the wrist.

It is so disproportionate – what sort of deterrent is that for others?

We diligently dish these cases up to the court after a thorough investigation and no referral about benefit cheats is ever not looked into.

But when they go before the courts, all they seem to say is ‘don’t do it again’.”

White, who has since lodged an appeal against her conviction, was also ordered to pay £730 in prosecution costs.

Coun Turner has attacked sentences for benefit fraud before. For his previous appearances in this blog, click the label below.

Jail for long term benefit fraud

2011-12-28T00:01:00.002Z

A North Yorkshire woman who fraudulently claimed almost £100,000 in benefits has been jailed for 15 months.

Elaine Hetherington, from Scarborough, posed as a single parent and lied on a number of forms dating back to July 1995 to claim housing benefit, council tax benefit and income support.

Hetherington, 53, pleaded guilty to nine charges of dishonestly claiming the support, and hiding the fact her husband lived with her and was working full time.

Sentencing her to 15 months in jail at York Crown Court, Recorder Deborah Sherwin said she could not suspend the sentence because of the length of time of the fraud and the amount involved. She said other people struggled on low incomes and with health problems but they did not resort to crimes like this.

Nick Edwards, Scarborough Borough Council’s head of finance and asset management, said: “The council brought this case to prosecution because of the huge amount of public money that has been stolen. This person’s claim was never an honest one and this dishonesty continued for more than ten years.

“This crime is committed against local residents, as it reduces the money available for projects that support the local community and takes funds away from people who most need them.”

Jail for £68k benefits thief

2011-12-23T11:51:00.000Z

A benefits cheat has been jailed after fraudulently claiming nearly £70,000 in benefits over six years.

Following an extensive investigation by the council’s benefit investigations team, Sohail Uddin, 41, was sentenced to 24 weeks in prison at Chester Crown Court.

Uddin, from Crewe pleaded guilty to the charges on November 17.

The overpayment of £68,406 was in relation to the time he worked as a night-shift warehouse operative while claiming benefits from the Department of Work and Pensions and Cheshire East Council between January 13, 2003 and September 20, 2009.

Uddin fraudulently claimed income support, severe disablement benefit, housing benefit and council tax benefit.

Pretty much a full house. And this went undetected for six years.

The council and the Department for Work and Pensions will seek to recover in full the overpayment of benefits to Uddin.

And Wokingham loses money to an IVA

2011-12-22T09:00:00.000Z

Benefit fraudsters will not have to repay nearly £25,000 they falsely claimed from taxpayers’ coffers after council bosses wrote off the debt.

The £24,976 of housing benefit money fraudulently claimed by a woman who claimed to be living alone, but who was actually living with her partner, will not be repaid in full to Wokingham Borough Council by the couple after they entered into an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA).

These agreements are an alternative for people who want to avoid bankruptcy, and constitutes a formal repayment proposal presented to the debtor’s creditors.

However in this case, the council’s claims for the outstanding balance resulted in just £478.18 being repaid, which added to the £200 they had already paid before entering the IVA.

The couple were prosecuted after the council uncovered the claims, which were made between May 2005 and February 2008.

The council has received £9,990.42 from the Government’s housing benefit subsidy arrangement, which offers 40 per cent of the original overpayment value, however it will still be out of pocket.

The cash is a significant percentage of the estimated £300,000 to £350,000 in fraudulently claimed benefit payouts made by the council each year.

Kevin Mercer, head of revenues and benefits at the council, said the case was extremely rare.

He said: “Historically across all the areas we write off very low amounts.

“This is the first time this type of case has come before me.

“Because this person has come into IVA we have had to stop the action.

“It is frustrating. We are just like any other body that administers public money – we want to make sure it goes in the right amount to the right people.

“That’s why we work extremely hard to prevent and detect fraud.”

The council is investigating around a dozen cases at present and annually investigates around 250 cases.

It identifies around £300,000 to £350,000 of fraudulently claimed funds each year and takes action, which includes taking offenders to court, issuing fines or giving cautions, in around 10 per cent of cases.

Between April and November this year, the council took nine cases to court which resulted in successful prosecution.

The council is actively working to stamp our false housing and council tax benefit fraud.

And it also collected 99.3 per cent of the council tax required from residents last year – the highest of all unitary authorities in the country.

Mr Mercer added: “We want people to know that if you have a legitimate claim you can expect the money you are entitled to.

“But if you try to claim money in the wrong way, we will make every effort to find you and take action where appropriate.”

Family keeps benefit fraud money

2011-12-22T00:01:00.001Z

A Southall woman has been imprisoned after falsely claiming £25,838 in housing benefit.

Taj Ali, from Southall, pleaded guilty and was sentenced at Isleworth Crown Court on Friday 9 December. She was sentenced to four months in prison and is paying the money back to the council at a rate of £15 per week under a voluntary arrangement. This amount is the maximum per week that the council can take as Ms Ali is in receipt of income support.

She had been claiming housing benefit on the Crispin Close property for three years and had falsely declared that she was not related to her landlord.

However, a council investigation discovered that the property was actually owned by her sister and her brother and that the money was being used to pay the mortgage.

Housing Benefit is only paid to people when they are part of a commercial tenancy and claimants are asked to declare any relationships as part of their application. When interviewed under caution, Ms Ali admitted that she was living in her family’s house.

Councillor Yvonne Johnson, cabinet member for Finance and Performance, said: “Ms Ali stole this money from all of us, so it is only right that she is given a custodial sentence. What she did was wrong and she is now paying the price. I hope that this judgement will serve as a lesson to anyone making fraudulent claims.”

The family gets to keep the benefit fraud money. That's not just.

Slow prosecution of incapacity benefit thief

2011-12-21T09:00:00.004Z

Benefits cheat Brent Perkins, who claimed nearly £10,000 of incapacity benefits despite the fact that he boxed and exercised at a gym, has escaped going to prison.

The dad arrived at Cheltenham Magistrates' Court with the aid of a single crutch.

But during a surveillance operation by the Department for Works and Pensions he was watched walking unaided, carrying a child, boxing and attending spinning classes at a gym in Barnwood.

The 50-year-old, from Matson, was the subject of surveillance in January, July and August 2009.

He pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to wrongly claiming disability living allowance and income support, amounting to £9,217, between February 2009 and February 2010.

District Judge Joti Bopa-Rai sentenced him to eight weeks' jail, suspended for two years. He was also made the subject of a four-month curfew and ordered to pay prosecution costs of £100.

Perkins was said to suffer arthritis of the knee, back problems following an injury and depression.

Prosecuting solicitor, Tim Burrows, said: "In 2005, the defendant was virtually unable to walk and needed constant support, but his health improved and he failed to notify the department of those improvements, which he is required to do.

"Information was received in June 2008 that the defendant was not disabled.

"He was seen walking unaided to his car, lifting bags into the boot and he joined a gym where he took part in spinning and boxing classes and stretching exercises."

Defending solicitor, Nicola Berryman, said: "This is not so much a case of my client acting fraudulently but he has been culpable of not keeping the department informed of his fluctuating state of health."

District Judge Bopa-Rai told Perkins: "The amount you claimed wrongly was substantial."

Perkins said afterwards: "I went to the gym after my doctor told me to try something but I couldn't do anything there. I am already paying the money back, but I live on £85 a week."

Council checks on market traders

2011-12-21T00:01:00.001Z

A 49-year-old woman who illegally claimed more than £40,000 in benefits was snared by an "enterprising" council scheme.

Sharon Straw, who claimed income support, housing benefit and council tax, did not tell the authorities when her partner moved in with her.

She was caught five years later, after Erewash Borough Council decided to compare addresses of market traders in the area with people claiming benefits.

During the investigation, the council discovered trader Terrance Newcombe was living at Straw's address in Ilkeston.

Derby Crown Court heard that Mr Newcombe had £16,000 in savings.

Sentencing Straw, Judge Andrew Hamilton said: "You managed to get out of the State over £40,000. It was thoroughly and utterly dishonest."

He handed Straw an eight-month jail sentence, suspended for two years, after she admitted two counts of failing to notify the Department for Work and Pensions of a change in circumstances.

Judge Hamilton said: "Congratulations to Erewash Borough Council – extremely enterprising to come up with this idea and clearly there will be other skeletons in the cupboard waiting for a knock on the door."

A judge who has a way with a mixed metaphor

He said he hoped the case would make other people own up and avoid court.

The court was told Straw had paid back all £40,633 to the council. The repayments began with a £20,000 lump sum from Mr Newcombe.

Andrew Wesley, in mitigation, said the couple had not been using the benefits to fund an "exotic lifestyle", instead the money was being used for day-to-day living.

He said Straw suffered from depression and cared for her teenage daughter, who had learning difficulties.

Straw had not reported the change because she had been uncertain of the long-term future of her relationship.

Straw was told to do 150 hours' unpaid work and must abide by a four-month curfew between 7pm and 6am. She must also pay £250 costs.

After the case, Ian Sankey, director for resources at the council, said: "We continually look for new ways to find people who are falsely claiming money.

"Most of the investigative work is done by using information that we have, liaising with the Department for Work and Pensions and cross-matching data."

Confiscation order against fraudster

2011-12-20T17:00:00.002Z

A rogue trader serving a five-year prison sentence after a judge branded him “a dyed-in-the-wool criminal” has been ordered to stump up almost £50,000 of his ill-gotten gains.

David Martin, 62, of Parsonage Road, Laisterdyke, Bradford, amassed a £56,000 fortune while illegally pocketing benefits.

He was well known to Bradford criminals as a professional “fence”, Bradford Crown Court heard when he was jailed in April last year.

Martin fooled the authorities into believing he could hardly walk while busy counterfeiting DVDs and travelling to the continent to trade in tobacco.

Yesterday, he was brought back to court from prison for a confiscation hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC, who locked him up 20 months ago, ruled that Martin’s criminality netted him £62,862. His available assets were agreed at £49,689.

If Martin has not raised the cash in six months he will spend an extra 18 months behind bars.

He pleaded guilty to benefit fraud, handling stolen goods, selling counterfeit DVDs, possessing a computer hard drive for use in fraud and possessing money as criminal property. Martin dishonestly claimed £23,331 in Income Support and Disability Living Allowance between 2002 and 2008. He did not reveal he had savings and stated he could hardly walk and was unable to make a meal or dress himself.

In February, 2008, police searched Martin’s home and seized DVDs to burn copies from and £12,000 in Sterling and Euros that he admitted was from his criminal activities. A further £44,663 was seized from his three bank accounts.

Prosecutor Gerald Hendron said Martin was well known to criminals in the area for “fencing” goods from his back door to sell at car boot sales.

He sold copied DVDs in pubs and travelled to Spain, Brussels and Tenerife to bring back tobacco to sell.

After the hearing, Detective Chief Inspector Mark McManus said: “The confiscation hearing today should act as a warning to criminals that we won’t tolerate people who handle stolen goods, abuse the benefits system and live off the proceeds.”

“The assets confiscated from Martin will help in the continued fight against crime.”

Jail for clampers and benefit thieves

2011-12-20T15:00:00.001Z

A gang of cowboy clampers who terrorised motorists across the West and committed benefit fraud on a massive scale were jailed for a total of ten years yesterday.

Carlton Williams, 47, Lee Stagg, 43, and Michael Riddle, 30, aggressively enforced “eye-watering” clamping fees – charging drivers up to £600 to free their cars.

They lurked in the shadows and pounced on unsuspecting motorists – often vulnerable women with children – who had parked on private land they managed.

The trio would intimidate them into handing over larger cash sums, while in other cases some cars were lifted onto a tow truck with the horrified motorists still inside.

Williams was given five-and-a-half years, Stagg three years and Riddle 18 months in prison after admitting blackmail charges totalling £3,775. But police estimated the clampers could have netted up to £350,000 from their illicit activity.

Two of the gang, Williams and Stagg, were also found to be taking £54,000 from the state in council tax, housing benefit and income support.

His Honour Judge Graham Hume Jones, sitting at Taunton Crown Court, told the trio: “It is clear that in the course of this business you extorted considerable sums of money from members of the public by arrogant, bullying and aggressive behaviour.

"You were licensed to clamp cars and I am told you had a form of uniform and badges to show your authenticity.

“In my judgement this aggravates the position because it gave the impression the sums you were demanding and the behaviour you were exhibiting was authentic.”

The court heard that the trio demanded large cash sums from motorists while operating A1 Clamping Services between 2005 and 2008.

Williams – considered to be the ringleader – operated the firm with Stagg and employed Riddle as a clamper.

The court was told that a ‘spotter’ car would lurk, waiting for motorists to park on private land they managed on behalf of shops and businesses. A tow truck would then be sent within minutes to haul clamped cars away.

The gang, who were fully licensed to clamp cars, would then aggressively confront the motorists, often giving them little chance to pay the minimum release fee.

The company had stated on its notices that the price of releasing a clamp was £100, but if the vehicle was towed away this would increase to £350 and rising to £500 if ‘storage fees’ were applied.

Police eventually became inundated with complaints that they were demanding as much as £600 to return cars.

One female victim, in Bridgwater, was inside her car when A1 Clamping Services lifted it up to tow it away.

Another woman was forced to sit on the roof of her vehicle, in a pub car park in Bridgwater to stop the gang from taking it. A third motorist, Chloe Brant, successfully got the clamping gang to release her car after calling the police.

The court heard when forced to unchain her vehicle, one of the clampers sneered: “I will get you next time.”

As the trio expanded their business, complaints reached officers from Wells, Torbay and Torquay and even as far as Staffordshire.

The court also heard that the gang targeted popular Bridgwater Carnival in 2006 – towing away numerous vehicles in the town.

All three were arrested in September 2007, but not charged until March 2010.

During that time the court heard Williams kept clamping, this time in Bristol.

Williams, from Bridgwater, eventually pleaded guilty to blackmail of £3,775 and making unwarranted demands for money with menaces between January 1, 2005 and January 1, 2008.

He also admitted benefit fraud totalling £42,518 and engaging in an aggressive commercial practice between July 18, 2009 and April 4, 2010, in Bristol, pocketing £675.

Stagg, also from Bridgwater, admitted blackmail for the same amount, making unwarranted demands with menaces and benefit fraud totalling £12,000.

Riddle, from Weston-super-Mare, also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to blackmail and making unwarranted demands.

Defence barristers for all three had pleaded for lenient sentences, claiming their clients had spared victims the ordeal of giving evidence in court.

The court was told there was no chance of costs being recovered from the defendants.

Jail for £32k benefit thief

2011-12-20T13:30:00.006Z

A Huntingdon couple who together defrauded the taxpayer out of more than £32,000 have been handed prison sentences.

Lawrence Stevens was sentenced to 12 months in jail for benefit fraud offences committed over a seven-year period.

He appeared at Huntingdon Magistrates’ Court where he and his partner Ruth Edley – a Cambridgeshire County Council employee – pleaded guilty to 15 charges of benefit fraud.

Edley received a two-month sentence, suspended for a year, for her part in allowing Stevens to make claims totalling £32,882 between 2004 and 2011.

The court heard that between those dates Stevens had claimed unemployment benefit eight times, declaring on each occasion that he was the sole occupant of his rented flat and reliant on state benefits.

But a tip-off from a member of the public alerted Huntingdonshire District Council and the Department for Work and Pensions to the fact that Stevens had lived with Edley for 10 years.

Investigators discovered that Edley had lived at the same address as Stevens since at least 2004, and that she owned a flat in Leicester which she rented out.

During the seven years, the couple had had concealed Edley’s residence with Stevens on benefit claims, electoral roll forms, council tax liability and rent agreements.

When investigators interviewed Stevens and Edley about the allegations, both refused to answer questions.

When the scale of the fraud was revealed, Stevens was charged with making false claims for benefit and Edley with allowing him to make those claims

David Potter, mitigating for Edley, said she and Stevens had made arrangements to pay back £350 a month, and asked the court to take into account her guilty plea and previous good character.

Elaine Havord, for Stevens, said he had previous convictions dating from before 2003, and asked the court to ignore his history of offending.

Stevens was sentenced to 12 months in prison, while Edley was sentenced to two months, suspended for 12 months, with a requirement to do 200 hours of unpaid work and pay £480 in costs.

Tax-cheat mum was benefit worker

2011-12-20T12:00:00.000Z

A fraudster worked at a benefits office while fleecing taxpayers out of almost £39,000 in tax credits by claiming she was a single mum.

Janice Lee lied about her childcare costs and denied that she was living with someone to rack up the Government cash she was receiving.

The mum launched the swindle while she was working for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), and so was the man she failed to notify officials she was living with.

Lee, 37, pleaded guilty to six counts of fraud, which were carried out between April 2005 and September 2010, at Teesside Crown Court.

Judge Peter Bowers ordered a report be prepared on Lee, from Hartlepool, by probation officers and granted her unconditional bail until she is sentenced on January 20 next year.

But he warned Lee: “The fact you have bail does not mean you won’t go to prison when you come back.”

Andrew West, prosecuting, said that the £38,862 Lee admitted to illegally gaining was on top of benefits she was rightfully due to and received.

Mr West added: “She was entitled to some, but not all. It wasn’t dishonest from the beginning, it seems to have slipped into dishonesty.

“She was working for the DWP at the time.”

Richard Herrmann, mitigating, read out sentencing guidelines that indicated Lee faces a prison term of between eight weeks and 12 months, but said he hopes any jail could be suspended with it being his client’s first time in court.

He added: “Her employment gave her no access. She could have been working anywhere else. It’s an interesting fact rather than one that aggravates the offence.

“This clearly crosses the custody threshold as it is in the bracket of between £20,000 and £100,000 and was carried out over a period of time.

“The argument will be that she is of good character and has children. Maybe it could be suspended.”

A spokesman for the DWP said Lee has not worked for the department since 2009.

Hove man jailed for £164k benefit fraud

2011-12-20T10:00:00.003Z

A man from Hove has been jailed for 20 months and his wife given a 12-month sentence suspended for two years after pleading guilty to benefit fraud worth more than £160,000.

Marcus and Zoe Bradbrook illegally claimed:

Housing Benefit from Brighton & Hove City Council worth £83,582
Income Support worth £70,982
Housing Benefit from Lewes District Council worth £9560 relating to an address in Newhaven.

The prosecution was brought jointly by the council and the Department for Work and Pensions, with the help of Sussex Police. The fraud came to light following an anonymous tip-off.

Between April 1999 and December 2010 Zoe Bradbrook, known at the time as Zoe Fitzgerald, claimed benefits as a lone parent with three children. In reality she was living with her partner Marcus Bradbrook, who was the father of her children and the owner of both the properties for which she claimed benefits.

Mr Bradbrook aided the offence by providing information that he resided at a different address to Zoe, producing and signing false tenancy agreements and receiving payments on her behalf.

Council investigators checked bank records, the Land Registry, birth and marriage records, household bills, and with the NHS and many other agencies to get the evidence they needed.

Zoe Bradbrook was also given a 200-hour community order with unpaid work requirement as part of her sentence.

She should have to serve a prison sentence once he gets out. And as they have property, presumably we will get our money back?

Computer shall not speak unto computer

2011-12-20T00:01:00.001Z

Pembrokeshire County Council paid off a teacher and then helped to prosecute her for not telling them about the redundancy payout, a jury has heard.

Christine Page, aged 54, had been working as a supply teacher at Penally VC School At the same time she had been claiming housing benefit and council tax relief.

Swansea crown court was told that in January, 2007, the county council made her redundant and sent her £5,249, representing redundancy compensation and outstanding salary.

But at the same time the authority was acting for the Department for Work and Pensions – and prosecuted her for not declaring the payment.

Bob Hawkins, prosecuting, said Page, from Tenby, went on to work at the Five Arches pub in Tenby and then the Kiln Park holiday complex, but continued to claim benefits without declaring her earnings.

Page denied failing to notify the authority that her circumstances had changed and receiving a total of £6,332 in housing benefit and £528 in council tax relief, to which she had not been entitled.

The jury was told that Page accepted that she should have written to the council telling them about her employment but she said she had contacted them four times, in person or by telephone, and so had not acted dishonestly.

That, Mr Hawkins said, was the central question for the jury.

Mr Hawkins said Page maintained that as the £5,249 had come from the county council they must have been aware she had received it.

But Karen Ann Evans, representing the branch of the authority acting for the DWP, said they did not have access to the council’s payroll.

Page was found guilty of three offences and will be sentenced after probation reports.

Failed asylum seeker was also benefits thief

2011-12-19T00:01:00.001Z

A failed asylum seeker has been jailed for 14 months after he was found guilty of fraudulently obtaining £20,559 in benefit money and possessing false documentation.

Mohamed Chenoun, a 36 year old Algerian national, from Slough, was convicted after pleading guilty to five offences at Reading Crown Court on December 12, relating to:

Using a false identity document to claim housing and council tax benefit between 4/12/06 and the 28/11/11.
Possessing a false French identity document with intent.
Possessing a false Italian identity documents without reasonable excuse.

Officers from Slough Borough Council, Thames Valley Police and the Department for Work and Pensions visited Chenoun’s home on December 1, where he was arrested on suspicion of fraudulently claiming benefits using false French identity documents in the name of Olivier Marc Arnaud.

A subsequent search of the property revealed he also possessed Italian identity documents in another false name of Luca De Carlo.

Chenoun appeared in front of a district judge at Slough Magistrates Court the following day, where he was remanded in custody and his case referred to Reading Crown Court.

At Reading Crown Court on December 12, following his early guilty pleas to all counts on the indictment, Chenoun was sentenced to a total of 14 months imprisonment.

Chenoun had been residing in the UK illegally having had a claim for asylum refused in 1999. UKBA are aware of the situation and it is hoped Chenoun will be deported after serving his sentence.

Man bucked immigration rules and was benefit thief

2011-12-16T00:01:00.000Z

A bogus asylum seeker who returned to the UK after being deported has been sentenced for a £16,000 benefit fraud.

Erzen Selmani, from Harlesden, has been given a 12-week prison sentence, suspended for 12-months, and ordered to carry out 150 hours unpaid community work.

We believe this criminal is meekly going to do this?

A lengthy investigation revealed that Selmani had first come to the UK from Kosovo in 2003 and used a false name and date of birth to claim asylum. He then used his fraudulently obtained asylum papers to claim benefit in Ealing and Brent and while in the country married a woman with a British passport.

When the Home Office became aware of Selmani’s fraudulent asylum claim he was deported, but later returned to the UK legally on a spousal visa. The benefit fraud only came to light when eagle-eyed council officers received a claim from Selmani’s wife in 2007.

Benefit claimants have to give details of their spouse and when officers checked they realised several years before there had been other claims from a man at the same address with a similar name. Because Selmani was originally living in the UK illegally and used false papers he was not entitled to the benefit he claimed.

Councillor Yvonne Johnson, cabinet member for finance and performance at Ealing Council, said: “This man cheated honest tax-payers out of £16,000 in benefits to which he was not entitled. If it wasn’t for our eagle-eyed benefits officers this fraud could have gone undetected. I hope this sends a strong message to people that even if their fraud was many years ago or they change their name, we will still track them down.”

Councillor Muhammed Butt, Lead Member for Resources at Brent Council, said: “I’d like to congratulate officers from both councils who worked together to bring about this case. Stealing from one council is bad enough but to steal from two is horrendous and shows a high level of greed. Brent Council will not stop in its pursuit of benefit thieves and anyone falsely claiming benefits should beware.”

Selmani pleaded guilty to six offences at a hearing at the court on 24 October. He will now have to repay all the money he fraudulently claimed.

Hm, right.

There should be an immediate confiscation order

2011-12-15T17:11:00.000Z

There should be an immediate confiscation order in cases of assets fraud like this, but the law moves at its own sedate pace.

A Worthing man has been sentenced to a 12 month community order after admitting benefit fraud.

Shahan Ali pleaded guilty to six matters of dishonestly making false statements to obtain housing and council tax benefit at Worthing Magistrates’ Court.

He was sentenced to a 12 month community order, on the condition he completes 200 hours unpaid work.

He was also ordered to pay £971.25 prosecution costs, incurred by Worthing Borough Council.

The court heard Ali, of Meadway Court, Worthing, first claimed housing and council tax benefit in December, 2008, whilst living in Lyndhurst Road, Worthing.

His award was calculated upon low income received from self employment and £400 held in a bank account.

It was revised in June 2011 when he purchased and moved to Meadway Court.

His new claim declared the same low earnings and single bank account

Following an investigation by the corporate investigations section of the council, a number of additional bank accounts were identified.

Statements obtained for the undeclared accounts confirmed, at the time of the initial application submitted in November, 2008, his capital had been in excess of £19,000.

During the period of his claim for means tested benefits, funds in excess of £92,000 had been deposited into these additional accounts.

The investigation also established rental income was being received from a second property in Cardiff, purchased by Ali’s wife in 2006.

This meant Ali and his family would not have qualified for benefits.

As a result, he received £16,842 housing benefit and £2156 council tax benefit, to which he was not entitled.

A spokeswoman for Worthing Borough Council said it would be seeking to recover the overpaid benefit.

Sentencing, magistrates said Ali had been “within a whisker” of going to prison.

Suspended sentence for £54k benefit fraud

2011-12-15T17:04:00.000Z

A 61-year-old woman has been sentenced after pleading guilty to being overpaid more than £54,000 in Income Support, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit.

Barbara Purcell, from Winsford, appeared before Chester Crown Court.

She pleaded guilty to three offences of dishonesty to both the Department for Work and Pensions and Cheshire West and Cheshire Council in respect of undeclared employment.

Mrs Purcell was sentenced to 24 weeks imprisonment suspended for twelve months and ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid work in the community. She was also ordered to pay £300 prosecution costs.

Mrs Purcell is required to fully repay the overpaid benefit to the Department for Work and Pensions and Cheshire West and Chester Council.

Cornish benefit thief took £6000

2011-12-15T17:01:00.000Z

At Bodmin Magistrates Court Julie Pote, from Gunnislake, pleaded guilty to 3 charges of dishonestly failing to declare changes in her circumstances to the Council.

Mrs Pote claimed Housing and Council Tax Benefit in December 2008 declaring that she was on a reduced income as she was off sick from work and in receipt of Statutory Sick Pay. She provided her payslips to the Council to support her claim however two weeks after providing this information she returned to work. Mrs Pote was charged with dishonestly failing to declare to the Council that she had returned to full time work on 19 January 2009.

The second charge involved Mrs Pote dishonestly failing to declare a change in her Tax Credit award in October 2009 and then in August 2010 Mrs Pote changed jobs but again she did not notify the Council generating the third dishonesty charge.

In April 2011 the case was referred to the Council’s Investigation Department who discovered the undeclared changes. Mrs Pote’s benefit entitlement was reassessed and over £6,000 of overpaid benefit had been made as a result of the fraudulent activity.

The magistrates acknowledged the seriousness of the case, and gave Mrs Pote credit for her early guilty plea however, they imposed a 6 month community order and a 12 week curfew (reduced from 18 weeks due to the early guilty plea) effective from 10 December 2011. The curfew imposed covers the period 12.00 midnight to 12.00 noon for 6 days a week Tuesday to Sunday.

Mrs Pote was ordered to pay £100 costs to the Council.

The overpaid Housing and Council Tax Benefit of £6602 is being recovered by the Council as a separate matter.

Jail for £27k benefits thief ... but no jail for £54k offender

2011-12-15T11:23:00.001Z

A welder who fiddled £27,500 benefits to pay off loan sharks has been jailed.

Adrian Williams, aged 54, started claiming incapacity benefit when he was genuinely sick but carried on doing so after he got better and went back to work. He also fiddled income support, housing and council tax benefits for three years, Exeter Crown Court was told.

Ex-soldier Williams, of Gregory Close, Tiverton, admitted three offences of dishonestly claiming benefits and one of false representation and was jailed for three months by Judge Graham Cottle.

The judge told him: “You carried out a fraud on the Department of Work and Pensions for a significant period of time and obtained £27,500 or thereabouts – a significant amount of money.”

Mr Malcolm Galloway, prosecuting, said Williams claimed a total of £27,546 he was not entitled to for more than three years until he was caught in March 2010.

He was found to have been working for a company called Jansen UK as a fabricator. He admitted he knew he had to report he had started work.

Mr Will Hopkin, defending, said: “He did have genuine medical problems and found himself £15,000 in debt. He went to a loan shark who put him under all sorts of pressure.

“He needed extra money and his accounts show he paid out £200 cash every week. He knows he did wrong. He was under pressure and his response was to work hard as a welder.”

Separately, a 61-year-old Winsford woman has escaped a jail sentence after admitting benefit fraud.

Barbara Purcell, of Caldy Way, Winsford, pleaded guilty to three offences of dishonesty relating to overpayments of more than £54,000 in Income Support, Housing Benefit and Council Tax.

She was sentenced to 24 weeks imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, 150 hours of unpaid work in the community, and was ordered to pay £300 prosecution costs.

She is required to fully repay the overpaid benefit to the Department for Work and Pensions and Cheshire West and Chester Council.

Light sentences for organised Roma benefit theft

2011-12-15T00:01:00.001Z

FOUR crooks who falsely claimed benefits of more than £130,000 in a "sophisticated" fraud have been jailed.

Gang members said they had been employed by a fictitious firm and produced fake paperwork.

They went on to claim tax credits, jobseekers allowance, income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit.

Paperwork was provided by ringleader Kystyna Bil, 39, of Emerson Square, who would receive a fee for her "services".

The fraud was carried out by people from Derby's Eastern European Roma community, said Adrian Farley, from HMRC.

He said: "The prosecution clearly shows how we are tackling the ruthless theft of money from the public purse. This is money needed to fund public services for the benefit of everyone."

Bil admitted three counts of conspiracy to defraud between May 2008 and July this year. She was jailed for 21 months.

A further three people pleaded guilty at Derby Crown Court to conspiracy offences in relation to the fraud, which the judge described as involving "professional planning".

Work records including pay slips, contracts of employment, P45s and worker registration certificates were supplied for a company that only existed on paper.

Maria Bil, 58, also of Emerson Square, admitted two counts of conspiracy to defraud between May 2008 and July this year. She was given a six-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months.

Ryszard Lack, 40, of the same address, admitted three counts of conspiracy to defraud, received a six-month suspended sentence and was ordered to do 160 hours unpaid work.

And Irena Pohlodkova, 33 of Burton Road, admitted two counts of conspiracy to defraud between the same dates and was given a six-month suspended sentence, with 200 hours of unpaid work.

More people have been identified as being part of the scam and their cases are currently going through the courts.

That's all you get for organised crime.

Mother imprisoned for £81k benefit fraud

2011-12-14T00:01:00.002Z

On Friday 2 December at Croydon Crown Court, Lorraine O’Sullivan, from Barfields, was given a six month custodial sentence after pleading guilty to benefit fraud of over £81,000 at an earlier hearing.

In 2002 Mrs O’Sullivan applied for Housing and Council Tax Benefit in her former name of Swain, while living at Whyteleafe on the basis she was a single parent. She also applied for Income Support.

Mrs O’Sullivan failed to notify either the Jobcentre Plus or Tandridge District Council her partner had moved in with her in May 2005. Mrs O’Sullivan was interviewed by Fraud Investigation Officers from the Council and Jobcentre Plus in 2009 and again in 2010. She denied her partner was living with her during both interviews.

As a result of Mrs O’Sullivan’s failure to notify the change in her circumstances to either organisation she received £81,430 in Income Support, Housing and Council Tax Benefit which she was not entitled to. She is currently repaying the debt to Tandridge District Council

After initially pleading not guilty, Mrs O’Sullivan changed her plea to guilty at a hearing on 14 October 2011. The judge gave her credit for her guilty plea and the fact she had spent the money on household expenditure. He was also aware of the impact of taking her away from her children. But he said there were no signs she would have stopped claiming the benefit and the amount of public funds lost was so great it was unrealistic to expect it would be paid back.

Councillor Martin Fisher, Chairman of the Resources Committee, said: “We worked with JobCentre Plus on this investigation and for both agencies prosecution is always a last resort. This was a large amount of money claimed fraudulently and we will continue to seek recovery of the Housing and Council Tax Benefit debt, although it is unlikely the total amount will ever be paid back. “

h/t Dave

Cheat told to pay back £18,000 of stolen benefits

2011-12-13T17:00:00.000Z

A benefits cheat who falsely claimed more than £18,000 has been ordered to repay what she stole.

Lindsay Cleminshaw received housing benefit, council tax benefit and income support benefits over a two year period – to which she was not entitled.

Cleminshaw, who falsely claimed £18,870 in total, pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining benefits after failing to notify Rochdale council and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that she was living with her partner – who was in full time employment.

A joint investigation was launched after an anonymous tip off was received by the benefit fraud hotline.

Cleminshaw later admitted the offences during an interview under caution.

At Rochdale magistrates court, she was sentenced to a community punishment order. She will have to carry out 80 hours of unpaid work, as well as repay £12,329 to the council and a further £6,441 to the DWP.

Coun Farooq Ahmed, Rochdale’s cabinet member for finance, said: “This serves as a warning to others who are withholding information in order to dishonestly receive benefits they are not entitled to.They can be sure we will continue to investigate and prosecute deliberate fraudsters.”

Councillor criticises light benefit fraud sentence

2011-12-13T16:00:00.000Z

A woman who fraudulently claimed more than £9,000 in benefits has been sentenced at Basildon Magistrates Court.

Shirley Allen, 64, from East Bergholt, Colchester, knowingly claimed housing benefit amounting to £7675 and council tax benefits of £1768 between 1 December 2008 and 12 December 2010.

She pleaded guilty to one charge of failing to notify a change of circumstances, namely that she had left The Brambles, Laindon, and moved to her current address.

She appeared at the court on Wednesday 7 December and received a 12 month community order with a requirement of supervision and ordered to pay costs of £475.

Councillor Phil Turner, cabinet member for resources, said the work of the Council’s fraud investigations team was excellent but unfortunately we see yet again that the judgement did not carry with it a custodial sentence.

He said: “Benefit fraud is not a victimless crime and anyone trying to defraud the taxpayer will be brought to task.

“Would-be cheats should take note. There is no way to avoid paying the penalty for stealing from the public purse and as well as paying the fine the criminals will have to pay back every penny they stole from our residents.”

Benefit cheat worked as court security guard

2011-12-13T15:18:00.000Z

A man who said he could only walk with a stick falsely claimed benefits while holding down several jobs – including working as a security guard at a court.

John Heaton, 44, pocketed more than £19,000 in Disability Living Allowance over more than eight years.

He worked physical jobs including head doorman at a holiday park and as a security guard at Bodmin Magistrates' Court.

But Plymouth magistrates heard he claimed he had no strength in an injured leg, no balance and needed a stick to help him walk.

Heaton, of Porth Bean Road, Newquay, admitted failing to notify a change of circumstances which would affect his benefit claim between October 2002 and March 2011.

Magistrates gave him an eight-week prison sentence, suspended for two years.

He was ordered to do 200 hours unpaid work and pay £50 towards prosecution costs.

The court heard he was paying back the £19,431 he was overpaid, at the rate of £60 a month.

John Major, prosecuting for the Department for Work and Pensions, said Heaton began claiming DLA in 1993 because he had fractured his right femur or thigh-bone in a road accident.

Mr Major said he claimed in 1994 that he could not walk without sticks and needed help with shopping and to get into the bath.

He added that in 2004 he was still saying he had no balance and needed a stick to walk.

But Mr Major said investigators found he had done a range of physical jobs since 2002, including pressure washing industrial plant, factory work at a creamery and as a security guard at Bodmin Magistrates' Court.

Ken Papenfus, for Heaton, said in the years after the accident he had been genuinely unable to work. He added that the money involved was substantial but did not represent a "significant income" over nearly nine years.

Mr Papenfus made the unusual step of giving his client a brief character reference, having met him in his capacity of a security guard at the Bodmin court.

Council employee hid overtime to get benefits

2011-12-13T15:10:00.000Z

A woman who claimed housing and council tax benefits has been found guilty of failing to declare her full income after working overtime for the council responsible for paying her the support.

Samantha Gray, from Hinckley, pleaded not guilty to the offence committed between April 7, 2008, and November 12, 2010, but was given an 18-month community order with 100 hours unpaid work and ordered to pay £425 costs after Leicester Magistrates' Court found the case proven.

Peter Bear, for Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council, said Gray had claimed housing and council tax benefits based on her basic income as a visitors' centre assistant, averaging at about £203 a month.

However, over 30 months between 2008 and 2010, she put in overtime which sent her income up to nearly £9,000.

Mr Bear said: "The issue was whether she notified the council about the change in her circumstances."

He said that over the period Gray had been overpaid benefits in the region of £7,000.

"The prosecution took her as a customer of benefits rather than an employee."

Chris Black, for Gray, said: "She was then and still is employed by the council.

"She was contracted to work 12 hours a week at the visitors' centre. The overtime was worked and the money earned. The council's wages department is in the same building as the benefits department and, as the wages department did not divulge the overtime works, she did not declare it."

Mr Black said she was paying back the overpayment at £16 a week and had been doing so for nearly a year.

h/t Dave

He had money but he stole ours too

2011-12-13T09:00:00.001Z

Ian Musgrove (66) of Arnhem Close, Eaton Socon pleaded guilty to two charges of claiming council tax benefit and pension credit between 2007 and 2011. The court heard that Musgrove had claimed pension credit in 2007 declaring that he held capital of around £12,000, and claimed council tax benefit in 2008 declaring capital of £7,000. Investigators from the council conducting exercises to track down claimants who had more capital than they had declared found that Musgrove held capital in more than a dozen bank, building society and ISA accounts between 2007 and 2011 totalling more than £60,000. As a result he had been overpaid £12,007 in various benefits that he was never entitled to claim.

David Potter for Musgrove said that his client had co-operated with the investigation, paid all the sums overpaid in full and was of previous good character. Musgrove received a 12 month Community Order with a requirement to complete 80 hours unpaid work and pay the council's full costs of £580.

Benefit thieves do it for the money. They should know they will have to pay back twice what they stole, and that they will get no benefits until they have. A confiscation order should be made immediately.

Any benefit thieves who don't go to prison should also have to do community service.

Public attitudes to benefit fraud

2011-12-13T00:01:00.000Z

With the survey interviews undertaken way back in February, DWP Communications finally publishes the results in December. Headlines

The proportion of people claiming to have seen, read or heard anything about benefit fraud was high (79%), despite a decrease in campaign spend over the last year.
Over half of the general public sample perceived benefit fraud as being easy to get away with (53%). This was lower amongst national claimants (41%).
The general public are less likely to think that the consequences of getting caught committing fraud are serious than claimants. 44% of the general public sample agreed that the penalties of getting caught committing benefit fraud are ‘not that bad’, compared to 36% of the national claimant sample.
There is a general acceptance amongst both the general public and national claimants that benefit fraud is wrong. 74% of the general public sample and 72% of the national claimants sample thought that benefit fraud is wrong all of the time, regardless of the circumstances.
65% of the national claimant sample said that they ‘definitely would’ report a change in their life or circumstances to JCP or their local council straight away.
Around a quarter (26%) of the national claimant sample were ‘on the cusp’ of becoming fraudsters while 4% said that they ‘definitely would not’ report a change in circumstances straight away. 5% of the sample responded ‘don’t know’ to this question.
42% of the general public sample said that they ‘definitely’ or ‘probably’ would report a neighbour who they knew was claiming more money than they were entitled to. This was slightly lower amongst national claimants at 36%.

Tap on the wrists for York benefit thieves

2011-12-12T00:01:00.011Z

A couple have been charged and sentenced for fraudulently claiming Housing and Council Tax Benefit from City of York Council.

Megan Tate (aged 23) of Holgate Road, claimed Housing Benefit using a false address while she lived with her boyfriend Mark Taylor (aged 29) of Holgate Road, who also claimed Housing Benefit and Council Tax benefit fraudulently by claiming that he lived alone.

The fraud was discovered after a member of the public tipped off City of York Council. The investigation was conducted by Veritau, a specialist company which investigates fraud on behalf of the Council.

Tate was charged with defrauding City of York Council of £1,097 in Housing Benefit and Taylor was charged with defrauding City of York Council of £3,000 in Housing Benefit and £390 in Council Tax Benefit.

The investigation concluded with the defendants both pleading guilty to all charges at York Magistrates Court on 1 December 2011.

Tate was given a two-year conditional discharge and Taylor a three-year conditional discharge.

What was the point of that then?

Benefit thieves do it for the money. They should know they will have to pay back twice what they stole, and that they will get no benefits until they have. A confiscation order should be made immediately.

Any benefit thieves who don't go to prison should also have to do community service.

Single parent frauds in Tamworth

2011-12-11T18:00:00.005Z

A continued crackdown on benefit fraud has led to the conviction of three Tamworth mums.

The borough council and the Department for Work and Pensions successfully prosecuted the women in separate court cases last week.

Bryony Payne, Amy Wright and Kelly Rogerson pocketed almost £26,000 of taxpayers' money after claiming benefits they weren't entitled to.

Appearing before Burton magistrates, the trio pleaded guilty to failing to notify the authorities of a change in personal circumstances.

Valley Drive resident Payne claimed £13,528 in income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit in January 2009.

The 29-year-old had said she was a single parent, but had been living with her partner.

The overpayment was made up of £8,446 housing benefit, £1,081 council tax benefit and £4,001 income support.

Last Tuesday (November 29), magistrates sentenced Payne to a 12-month community order, with 240 hours' unpaid work, and ordered her to pay £100 costs.

She was also made to repay the £13,528 which was falsely claimed.

Twenty-eight-year-old Wright attended Burton Magistrates' Court on Monday, November 21, where she admitted to claiming benefits as a single parent while living with her partner.

The Honeybourne resident was overpaid £4,558 – £858 housing benefit, £570 council tax benefit and £3,129 income support.

Wright was sentenced to a community order, with 60 hours' unpaid work. She was ordered to pay £100 costs, as well as paying back the £4,558.

Tamworth's Kelly Louise Rogerson also claimed benefits as a single parent.

She failed to inform the council and DWP that her partner had moved in with her.

As a result, she illegally claimed £7,711. This was made up of £3,857 housing benefit, £755 council tax benefit and £3,098.95 income support.

Rogerson, who also appeared in court on Tuesday, was given a 12-month community order, 60 hours' unpaid work and ordered to pay £100 costs.

In addition, she must also repay the £7,711 unlawfully obtained.

Tap on the wrist for stealing £4,600

2011-12-11T17:00:00.007Z

A benefits cheat who won £250,000 on a scratchcard has admitted claiming incapacity payouts despite his windfall.

Andrew Crossthwaite, 23, landed the six-figure sum on a National Lottery game, but failed to tell the authorities about his win, Preston magistrates were told.

Crossthwaite admitted wrongfully claiming £4,614 in employment and support allowance (ESA), the new version of incapacity benefit and income support.

However, the court was told he had been left with nothing after blowing his lottery win on cars and drugs and giving the rest away to friends - including half of his winnings to a pal who bought the ticket on his behalf.

Stephen Scott, prosecuting on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), said: 'The defendant was claiming employment and support allowance for him, his partner and child until January 20 this year on the basis he was unemployed and was incapable of work due to a problem with alcohol abuse.

'He was paid ESA but won £250,000 on a scratchcard on June 25, 2010 - a significant amount of money which should have been disclosed to the DWP and would have impacted on the right to benefits.

'That was not disclosed and proceedings were brought.'

Crossthwaite, of Mersey Street, Longridge, near Preston, pleaded guilty to failing to notify the authorities of a change in his circumstances.

James Ball, defending, said Crossthwaite had been so wrapped up in his new-found wealth that he neglected to tell the DWP, but that the win had now ruined his life.

Mr Ball said: "At the time, the last thing on his mind was ESA. This money which he won is now all gone - he has no tangible assets.

'It is fair to say he has wasted it. He purchased a few cars but nothing special and these cars have gone.

'He wasted a lot of it on a drug habit, though for the last six months, he has not taken any substances at all. Certain sums of money were given away to friends.

'A friend, on his behalf, purchased the scratchcard and Mr Crossthwaite gave his friend half of it.

'In one way, (winning) was the best thing that happened to him but in another, it was the worst. He was not able to deal with the windfall. He and his partner have split up.'

Two other charges of wrongfully claiming council tax benefit and housing benefit following the win were withdrawn in court.

James Park, chairman of the magistrates' bench, told Crossthwaite: 'You have a poor record and we are not impressed.'

Crossthwaite was placed on a one-year supervision order, with 36 hours at an attendance centre, and must pay £100 costs.

That's for stealing over £4,000.

Nearly 5% wrongly claiming council tax discount in review

2011-12-11T12:00:00.000Z

A review of council tax single person discounts in Derbyshire has revealed almost 5% of claimants reviewed were not entitled to it.

Nine of the Derbyshire councils who are part of the Derbyshire Transformational Partnership have been working with Capita to conduct a single person’s council tax discount review.

Capita reviewed 135,000 cases of single person discount eligibility. 6,545 claimants were found to not be entitled to the discount and these have now been removed. This has generated additional revenue for the councils of £2.5million....

Capita analysed credit reference data to identify cases where there was a risk that single person discount was not appropriate. They contacted these claimants initially by letter for review. Those seen as high risk were also reviewed with a phone interview using voice risk analysis, a process that uses technology and behavioural analysis to pick up on potential fraud.

How much tax credit fraud is there?

2011-12-08T15:18:00.000Z

What's happening with tax credit fraud? Back in 2007-08, HMRC seemed to be suggesting that tax credit fraud might be running at £150m+. For 2008-09 I suggested £250m was a conservative estimate of tax credit fraud.

Conservative, yes. Fujitsu has produced some mind boggling numbers.

HMRC has saved £400million in the past six months due to fraud detection software which targets fake tax credit claims, it has been revealed today.

IT service provider Fujitsu, working closely with the taxman, has been processing new applications for tax credits since the start of the year and has sounded out thousands of fraudulent claims, using clever data analytics software it has developed.

So confident were they in the software that they were offering a 'no-win, no-fee' contract with HMRC.

But what's this? Not two weeks later The Guardian tells us that

HMRC and the DWP have signed a deal with credit reference agency Experian to use its data to detect fraud and error in the tax credits and benefits systems.

They said that a recent pilot protected more than £16m of potential losses in tax credits, and that the move could save about £700m for HMRC over the life of the contract and £100m for DWP. A spokesman for HMRC said the duration and value of the contract are confidential.

Maybe, but elsewhere we learn that the contract is for 12 months.

Back to The Guardian, which suggests Experian is employing the revolutionary procedure of data matching.

HMRC has released a number of case studies illustrating where savings have been made in the pilot. One involved a woman claiming as a single parent with four children, where a search of Experian's information on financial applications showed that she had a partner living at the same address. This led to her awards being stopped.

Others showed up fraudulent claims through reference to data from sources as diverse as the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the Passport Office, credit card companies and mobile phone contracts.

We aren't told whether they will concentrate on new applications, or whether Experian will be digging right through tax credit claims which have already been processed.

However, if Experian's expected to identify £700m of fraud over 12 months, the total level of fraud must surely be at least £1bn.

It's probably more.

Too ill for proper punishment

2011-12-08T00:01:00.001Z

A Scarborough benefits cheat who illegally claimed nearly £85,000 in a “truly shocking” act of deceit has escaped an immediate jail sentence.

Carol Blackburn, of Prospect Park, was handed a 10 month sentence - suspended for 18 months - after being prosecuted on six charges of benefit fraud.

The judge in the case had threatened 59-year-old Blackburn with immediate custody but was unable to enforce the sentence on health grounds.

Blackburn had deliberately failed to disclose that her landlord was, in fact, her husband and had made several false statements to Scarborough Council and the Department for Work and Pensions claiming to be a single person.

She even claimed by using a different name than her married name in order to hide her relationship.

The offences were carried out between 2003 and 2009.

Nicholas Edwards, Scarborough Council’s Head of Finance and Asset Management said: “The amount of money stolen in this case is truly shocking.

“This case represents a prolonged and organised attack on the benefits system and the public funds that support the most vulnerable in society.”

After being handed the suspended sentence, Blackburn was also ordered to abide by a curfew, confining her to her home between 7pm and 7am each day during the next six months.

PCSO turned to benefit theft

2011-12-07T21:31:00.000Z

A cheating police community support officer was caught red-handed running a florist despite telling bosses he was too sick to work.

Daniel Earls, 45, set up the family business while dishonestly claiming more than £23,000 in pay and benefits.

But the former traffic warden was caught out by an extraordinary undercover operation launched by suspicious colleagues.

Plain-clothes officers made a string of purchases at his shop in Sittingbourne, Kent, to prove that he was fit enough to patrol the beat.

They discovered the PCSO had fooled senior officers with claims that he was suffering stress and was too exhausted to get out of bed.

But Earls avoided jail yesterday after a judge heard of his bravery in tackling two armed men while on duty in South-East London.

Sentencing him to a 12-month suspended prison sentence and 300 hours of community work, Judge Stephen Robbins said he would 'temper justice with mercy.'

He said: 'This was a blatant and persistent course of conduct, you went to great lengths to fool your employers and string them along with this breach of trust.

'You thereby undermined the system that is in place for people who are genuinely ill. The amount involved was £23,000.

'You could not have complained if you had gone to prison for some length of time but there are more ways of restricting someone's freedom than putting someone in prison.'

Earls, who resigned from the Metropolitan Police after his arrest, joined the force in 2001 and was a PCSO based in Catford, South-East London.

Southwark Crown Court heard he first called in sick on November 30, 2008, telling senior officers that he was suffering from flu.

But the very next day he registered the Little Covent Garden Florist, in High Street, Sittingbourne, with the tax authorities.

Over the next 12 months he fobbed off bosses with a variety of ailments including stress, a gastric disorder and extreme exhaustion.

The civilian employee even attended meetings with occupational health workers designed to help him get back on the streets.

Meanwhile he ran the florist with his wife Silvana, opening up at 8am, serving customers, making deliveries in a van and organising the finances.

The court he had moved to Kent for a better environment for his 12-year-old son and intended to leave the police and run the florist permanently.

But despite investing £80,000 from the sale of his home in to the business, it continued to lose money and he used the illicit sick pay to make ends meet.

Earls was finally rumbled when a supervisor called unannounced at his home in Doddington and a neighbour said he was working at the shop.

The PCSO was seen at the shop and undercover officers were sent in to buy flowers on two occasions. He resigned when confronted with the damning evidence.

Earls was commended for bravery in 2006 and 2008 after helping to tackle armed and dangerous criminals.

In the latest incident he arrested a gunman carrying a loaded .44 Magnum revolver.

Defence barrister Stephen Walters said his client had been an 'exemplary employee' and was 'truly ashamed' of his actions.

Mr Walters added: 'The business continued to lose money and he needed the sick pay to which he was not entitled to keep matters afloat.'

Earls, who admitted fraud by false representation at an earlier hearing, was also ordered to repay the £23,156 he received in sick pay and pension benefits.

Speaking after the hearing, Inspector Mike Rabstein, who investigated the fraud, said he was satisfied with the sentence.

He said: 'We are disappointed that one of our employees should be in such a position but where the evidence suggests wrongdoing we will pursue it all the way to court.'

Tap on the wrist for Whiston benefit thief

2011-12-07T21:11:00.000Z

A Whiston man falsely claimed £16,000 in benefits after failing to declare his full earnings.

But Walter Shuttleworth was caught out via a joint investigation by Knowsley Council and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

The 47-year-old had been claiming housing and council tax benefit on the basis that he lived with his partner at Skeffington, Whiston, and was in receipt of income support and carer’s allowance.

But Shuttleworth was found to have stashed substantial earnings from a gardening business in an undeclared bank account.

And he admitted failing to notify Knowsley Council of a change in his circumstances – which he knew would affect his benefit entitlement – before Huyton Magistrates’ Court.

Shuttleworth was ordered to abide by a four-month 7pm-7am curfew and ordered to pay £100 costs.

Judge: sentencing guidelines don't agree with public opinion

2011-12-07T00:01:00.022Z

A mother who said she could barely walk claimed nearly £46,000 in benefits before being filmed training for a half marathon.

Gillian Hulme, 55, was a member of a running club in Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, where she lived and regularly went to Willfield Fitness Centre five days a week for spinning and aerobics classes.

She was filmed taking part in a five-mile run despite claims that she could not walk more than 20 yards without 'severe discomfort'.

Tipped off by a member of the public, investigators from the Department for Work and Pensions then discovered that she had claimed £45,925 in disability benefits.

Hulme had a legitimate claim in May 1996 for back pain, Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court heard. But she failed to notify authorities of a change in circumstances between 2009 and 2010.

Judge Mark Eades told Hulme that her life and reputation had been 'publicly ruined' by her actions.

If you asked most people in the street for their opinions on this case, they would probably say lock you up and throw away the key, but there are guidelines the court has to follow.

You were mobile, in a sports club and taking physical exercise on a regular basis, and you knew perfectly well that what you were doing was utterly wrong.

Disability Living Allowance is for those who require help from the state.

It's for those who suffer misfortune, usually of a health nature, and it's a safety net provided by the state to ensure people who do suffer misfortune do not suffer deprivation in consequence.

The whole system is undermined and its reputation damaged by people who dig into that fund of money when they are not entitled to it.

Hulme was a member of the women-only Potters Trotters Running Club and had attended more than 50 events since joining.

She had claimed she was sometimes housebound because of her pains.

Prosecutor Balvinder Bhatti said: 'When the claim started, the defendant said it could take her up to three minutes to walk 20 yards and she was in pain when she stood up.

'Evidence has since been collected that shows her condition has improved significantly and that she joined a running club.

'She also signed up for Willfield Fitness Centre and signed a certificate declaring herself as medically fit.'

Hulme told investigators that she had joined Potters' Trotters to see if she would be physically able to take part in the exercise.

She later told officers she had been naive and stupid.

Stuart Muldoon, defending, said: 'The money was not being claimed to fund an extravagant lifestyle.

'She is deeply ashamed and has voluntarily been paying back £50 per month since March, despite the threat of custody hanging over her.'

Hulme was ordered to complete 200 hours of community service.

At last a Judge gets it on benefit fraud sentencing

2011-12-06T08:00:00.001Z

A mother-of-two has been jailed after being filmed going down a water slide despite claiming she could not walk without crutches.

Tina Attanasio, 51, managed to swindle £19,000 in benefits over four and a half years but was caught out when a spurned lover handed family video footage to investigators.

It showed her on an action-packed holiday in the South of France not just going down the water slide but climbing cobbled hills, bouncing down steep steps and strolling on a beach.

She appeared not to have any difficulty in getting out of the pool during the Mediterranean break during the time that she was receiving disability living allowance.

Attanasio was today told that she would spend Christmas behind bars as she serves a 10-week prison sentence after pleading guilty to fraudulently obtaining benefits between August 2005 and February last year.

Judge Nicholas Chook, Recorder of Cardiff, told her:

Benefit fraud is so easy to commit but difficult to detect and the department relies on partners to come forward.'

Sadly it is necessary for courts to make it clear those who defraud the benefits system as shown in the video will face custody.

Attanasio had claimed she was 'too weak to walk any significant distance' without crutches.

Prosecutor Nicholas Gedge told the court that Attanasio claimed she needed help and assistance walking, getting in out of bed, going to the toilet and bathing.

He said: 'You said you could only walk 10 metres before feeling severe discomfort and said it would take you three minutes to do this. But these videos show you walking unaided, climbing up steep steps and using water slides.'

Defending her, Jennet Treharne said Attanasio had good days and the warmer climate helped.

'Her back disability was significantly improved on that holiday in the South of France. Tina has good and bad days and the videos were clearly taken on good days when the hot weather eased the pain in her back.'

Meaningless sentence for benefit thief

2011-12-06T00:01:00.010Z

A drummer in a marching band who claimed he could walk no more than 15 yards and couldn’t even tie his own shoelaces has been exposed as a benefits cheat, after investigators secretly filmed him marching through the streets.

Alexander Clarkson was caught marching through Great Harwood in Lancashire in full Scottish pipe band regalia and kilt.

At the same time, the 63-year-old was receiving thousands of pounds every year by claiming he could walk only short distances and was always falling over because of his disabilities.

Clarkson, from Blackpool Lancs, admitted cheating the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) out of £17,329 over a six-year period by failing to tell them his disabilities had improved.

District judge Jeff Brailsford at Blackpool Magistrates’ Court handed Clarkson a 56-day jail term, suspended for a year.

He was told the former soldier turned bricklayer had not worked for 33 years.

Prosecutor Michael Woosnam told how Clarkson lived a double life. On one hand he said he needed crutches to get about and could not travel anywhere alone. As well as a disabled living allowance Clarkson also claimed carer's allowance because he needed help cooking meals.

But at the same time he was a dedicated member of the City of Preston Scottish Pipe and Drum band and a member of the Blackpool Male Voice Choir.

The court heard that the DWP were tipped off about Clarksons's cheating and sent a surveillance team to follow him.

They filmed him at a Remembrance Day ceremony in the Lancashire town of Great Harwood where he was lead drummer marching the streets for 30 minutes.

When he was confronted about his actions Clarkson said that he had been mistaken for someone else who had borrowed his car for the day.

The following day he was followed walking to a funeral and then attending the wake that followed.

Mr Woosnam said: ‘In interview Clarkson said he had continued to claim benefits because he quite simply did not want to lose the money. He also said he had applied to have the carer's element of his claim upgraded.’

Peter Manning, defending, said that Clarkson did have arthritic knees, asthma and diabetes and had recently had an operation on his groin. ‘My client accepts he should have informed the department about his improved mobility.’

Sentencing Clarkson, the judge said: ‘It is clear from the film I have seen, you got pleasure from being in the band. You clearly marched and bent down to pick up your drum. There seemed to be no hindrance to your mobility.

‘And when you were questioned about it you denied it was you.

‘You have been living a comfortable lifestyle as a result of your benefits allowing you to pay £100 a month TV subscriptions and £80 a month on drink and £120 a month on travel.’

This sentence is meaningless, it is no punishment.

Benefit thieves do it for the money. They should know they will have to pay back twice what they stole, and that they will get no benefits until they have. A confiscation order should be made immediately.

Any benefit thieves who don't go to prison should also have to do community service.

Tap on the wrist for Brent benefit thieves

2011-12-05T00:01:00.002Z

A retired court usher, a buy-to-let landlady and a single father have all been convicted of benefit fraud.

Wood Green Crown Court heard Theresa McGroarty, from Wembley, claimed Housing and Council Tax benefit for more than 13 years after claiming her only income was from a state retirement pension.

However during a datamatching exercise, investigators discovered the 69-year-old was receiving a civil service pension of £200 - £280 a month from her former job as an usher at Harrow Crown Court.

Between July 1996 to December 2009, she pocketed £21,752 she was not entitled to.

McGroarty admitted four charges of benefit fraud.

She was sentenced to a 12 month conditional discharge, ordered to pay £1,200 towards legal costs at and is paying the sum back to the council in instalments.

Brent Magistrates’ Court heard the cases of Sandra Harriott, 37, from Kenton, and 45-year-old Robert Peel, from Neasden.

Harriott claimed benefits citing she was on a low income just days after splashing out on a buy-to-let property in east London.

The mother-of-two received £25,000 in Housing and Council Tax benefits between May 2006 and June 2008.

She admitted three counts of benefit fraud and was sentenced to a 10-week jail term suspended for 12 months and ordered to pay £500 towards the council’s legal costs.

To date she has paid back £23,000 of her ill-gotten gains.

Peel admitted fraudulently claiming £8,546 in Housing and Council Tax benefit between February 2006 and July 2009.

The court heard the single father failed to declare he was receiving a £250 a month pension from Transport for London.

In a further twist, he chose to go to court by rejecting an administrative penalty where he would have avoided court if he paid back the sum plus a penalty of 30 per cent.

He received a conditional discharge for 12 months and was ordered to pay an additional £300 towards legal costs.He must also pay back the overpaid benefits.

Financially he made the right decision, didn't he.

Cllr Muhammed Butt, Brent Council’s lead member for resources, said: “The level of greed shown by these benefit thieves will no doubt appal Brent residents.

“I hope it will send a clear message to anyone else claiming benefits fraudulently: don’t do it or you will get caught and we will prosecute.”

Tap on the wrist for Crawley benefit thieves

2011-12-04T18:00:00.013Z

TWO women have appeared in court for fraudulently claiming a total of £7,000 in benefits.

Emma Legg appeared at Mid Sussex Magistrates’ Court for housing and council tax benefit fraud.

Ms Legg pleaded guilty to failing to disclose that she had left her privately rented accommodation, for which she was receiving housing and council tax benefit.

Neighbours told the council the property had been empty and that she was living with her boyfriend in Chichester.

Crawley Borough Council proved Ms Legg had left the Crawley property but had continued to claim benefit for it as if she was still living there.

In total, Ms Legg fraudulently claimed £2,500 in housing and council tax benefits which she must repay to the council. She was also fined £127 and was ordered to pay costs of £100.

Meichelle Ramsey also appeared at Mid Sussex Magistrates’ Court for benefit fraud.

She pleaded guilty to failing to declare she was in receipt of tax credits and was sentenced to a 12-month conditional discharge.

Crawley Borough Council was able to prove Meichelle Ramsey had failed to declare she was receiving up to £250 in tax credit payments every week.

Between March 2010 and November 2010 she had been over-paid £4,500 in benefits, which is being recovered by the council.

Cllr Lee Gilroy, Cabinet member for housing at Crawley Borough Council, said: “The council takes a very serious view of people who claim benefits when they are not entitled to them.

“The council’s fraud team works hard to prevent, detect and investigate all fraud committed against the council.

“Those claiming benefits should contact us immediately if their circumstances change.”

The council may take a very serious view of benefit fraud, but clearly the courts don't. The court knows the community took a dim view of Ms Legg's benefit fraud - her neighbours reported her. The council responded to their voters' concerns.

The court didn't. The judiciary often seem concerned to administer nominal punishments which won't trouble the judicial system to enforce.

They have no deterrent effect.

Tap on the wrist for Southend benefit thief

2011-12-04T16:00:00.000Z

A benefits cheat has been ordered to pay back £8,000 to the taxpayer.

Raymond Shutts, 57, from Southend, was granted housing and council tax benefits after telling Southend Council he was receiving incapacity benefit.

However, he then kept quiet about receiving a lump sum payment of between £14,000 to £18,000, meaning the council shelled out £8,000 more than was owed.

Shutts, who admitted benefit fraud, was told to return the money, pay £50 in legal costs and given an 18-month conditional discharge when he appeared at Southend Magistrates’ Court.

Benefit thieves do it for the money. They should know they will have to pay back twice what they stole, and that they will get no benefits until they have. A confiscation order should be made immediately.

Any benefit thieves who don't go to prison should also have to do community service.

£56k benefit thief jailed

2011-12-04T14:00:00.004Z

A Bedfordshire woman has been jailed for over seven months after fraudulently claiming over £56,000 in benefits.

Rebecca Gerrard, from Bedford, pleaded guilty to 15 charges of benefit fraud despite originally entering a not guilty plea.

From December 2001 to October 2008 Gerrard falsely claimed a total of £36,639 in Income Support and £21,521 in Housing and Council Tax Benefit.

A joint investigation carried out between investigators at Bedford Borough Council and the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) commenced after the DWP received an anonymous allegation from a member of the public and established that Gerrard had not told Bedford Borough Council that she was married, continuing to claim Income Support and Housing and Council Tax Benefit as a lone parent.

Luton Crown Court heard that Gerrard originally claimed benefit as a lone parent in July 1993 but failed to notify the authorities that she had been living with her husband at several addresses in Bedford since 1994 and the birth of her second child who was born in 2000.

On the 23rd November she attended Luton Crown Court and was sentenced to 32 weeks in prison.

Councillor Shan Hunt, Portfolio Holder for Revenues and Benefits at Bedford Borough Council said: "Benefits are there to support people in genuine need. For almost 8 years this person has defrauded the benefits system of more than £56,000. Bedford Borough Council works hard to support genuine claimants and this sentence reiterates the message that people who steal from the taxpayer can expect to go to prison."

The slowwwwwwwwwwwww benefit fraud prosecution

2011-12-04T12:00:00.010Z

A BENEFITS cheat from Haverhill has been sent to prison after he was overpaid more than £8,000.

David Packer, 46, appeared at Bury St Edmunds Magistrates’ Court charged with three counts of dishonestly failing to give prompt notification about a change in circumstances affecting his entitlement to a benefit.

He was overpaid £3675 housing benefit and £946 council tax benefit by St Edmundsbury Borough Council and £3859 in income support from Job Centre Plus.

He has been sentenced to 12 weeks’ custody for each of the three offences to run concurrently. In 2006, Packer claimed income support from Job Centre Plus and housing and council tax benefits from St Edmundsbury Borough Council.

However, between November 6, 2006, and April 8, 2007, Packer was working for Atlantic Chauffeuring and Milton Cars, but neither Job Centre Plus nor St Edmundsbury Borough Council were informed.

In May 2007 his wife began work at Careforce, of Haverhill, but this change of circumstance was not notified. Packer also had an undeclared bank account. On February 7, 2008, and on December 9, 2009, Packer was interviewed by benefit fraud investigators. He eventually admitted that he had dishonestly failed to declare the bank account and the work.

So what took so long?

Mother fails to appear at court

2011-12-04T10:00:00.002Z

A 36-year-old mother accused of falsely claiming almost £100,000 in state benefits by pretending her young son had cancer failed to appear at court on Friday and a warrant was issued for her arrest.

It is alleged that the woman, from Berkeley, shaved the head and eyebrows of her son from the age of about four to make it appear he was seriously ill and receiving chemotherapy treatment.

The alleged offences by the mum-of-five are said to have gone on for about seven years.

She appeared before magistrates in Gloucester on October 4 accused of two offences of child cruelty and 15 offences of fraud and deception to obtain disability living and carers' allowances.

She failed to appear for committal proceedings to send the case to Gloucester Crown Court but she contacted her solicitor Nick Cooper's office saying she was at Frenchay Hospital in Bristol suffering from seizures.

Mr Cooper said she had told him a letter would be sent by the doctor treating her, but it had not arrived.

But investigating officer for Stroud District Council Phil English told the bench that the woman had been released from hospital three days ago, and had been seen near her home today.

Prosecutor Andrew Bowdler told the bench the woman now faced a further charge alleging that between June 2010 and February 2011, she committed fraud by failing to inform HM Revenue and Customs that her five children were no longer living with her, but she continued to claim tax credits and child benefit for them.

Mr Cooper told the court he had received a communication from the woman, who cannot be named for legal reasons, saying that she was in Frenchay Hospital high dependency unit suffering from seizures.

"She said a letter would be sent by the doctor treating her giving the nature of her complaint," he said, "but it has not yet arrived."

Outlining the extra charge, which made a total of 18, Mr Bowdler agreed with Mr Cooper that the case should be put back to see if the doctor's letter arrived.

But after Mr English's evidence, the magistrates issued a warrant for her arrest not backed by bail.

At the earlier hearing the woman had been bailed pending the committal today. She has yet to enter pleas to any of the charges.

Light benefit fraud sentence "encourages others"

2011-12-04T08:00:00.003Z

A mum who swindled the state out of more than £43,000 in benefits over five years has been ordered to do 200 hours’ unpaid community work.

Jacqueline Hall falsely claimed state handouts by hiding the fact that she was living with her working partner, Peter Carr, from the authorities.

At one point she asked for her benefits to be paid to him, claiming he was her brother, Teesside Crown Court heard.

She claimed to live alone and took £43,278 between November 2005 and February 2011 - about £8,000 a year - to which she was not entitled.

She was overpaid £23,558 in income support, £15,864 in housing benefit and £3,855 in council tax benefit.

The mum’s claims started legitimately in 1999 but became fraudulent later, said Joan Smith, prosecuting for Middlesbrough Council.

Investigators found Mr Carr was registered on the voters’ roll and with his employer at Hall’s home on Denham Close, Pallister Park.

She was also listed as his next of kin. When interviewed, she suggested Mr Carr was homeless and sometimes stayed over.

She accepted she had been deceitful and done wrong, and since paid back about £525.

Hall admitted two counts of making a false representation to obtain benefits and two of failing to give notification of a change in her circumstances.

Andrew Teate, defending, said: “She is not a stereotypical offender.”

He said she had lost the good character she held dear, expressed great remorse and didn’t try to excuse herself.

He said part of the reason for the fraud was Mr Carr moved in and out of the house, affecting finances and budgets.

She knew the impact of her crime on society, but it also hit her and her family.

Now taking anti-depressants because of the case, she would not claim benefits even if entitled to them, not wanting to risk the same situation again.

Mr Teate said hers was a limited income family, she did not misuse drugs or alcohol and paid back £160 per month.

He added that she was keen to work in charity shops as part of her sentence.

A probation report said prison would halt repayments and badly affect her health and state of mind.

Judge Peter Armstrong said: “I’m persuaded it’s not necessary to lock you up today.”

He gave her a four-month prison sentence suspended for two years with 200 hours’ unpaid work.

Look at the comments, Judge Peter Armstrong: people think your sentence was actually an encouragement to crime, not a deterrent.

Government to start using its information shock

2011-12-02T08:00:00.002Z

Absent parents will have their benefits docked in an overhaul of the child maintenance system, says the Daily Mail.

Tough checks will be brought in to make it harder for people to lie about their incomes to escape paying maintenance payments, a minister said.

Officials will cross-check parents' claims about their incomes with tax details held by HMRC. About time the government started cross-checking databases when people want money.

Work and Pensions minister Maria Miller said the reforms would make applications much faster to process. At present, mothers often wait for months before money begins to trickle in from absent fathers.

Almost no punishment for almost £50k benefit fraud

2011-12-02T00:01:00.000Z

A former revenue and customs worker has avoided jail after admitting illegally claiming almost £50,000 in benefits.

Daisy Adu-Gyamfi, from Addiscombe, lied about her immigration status to get a job with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs and then fraudulently claimed child benefit and tax credit claims.

She also calimed childcare sosts when her children no longer attended nursery and working tax credits when no longer employed.

Appearing in Croydon Crown Court on Monday November 28 Adu-Gyamfi was sentenced to 12 months in jail, suspended for two years and 200 hours of community service.

Barbara Duda, HMRC's Internal Governance Criminal Investigations, said: "HMRC expects the highest standards of behaviour from its staff.

“Adu-Gyamfi blatantly lied to gain employment as an HMRC employee and abused the tax credit system, a system designed to provide financial help to the most vulnerable people in our society, for her own personal financial gain.

“We will relentlessly pursue anyone who attempts to steal from public funds and they will face criminal prosecution."

Working for a public body involved in benefits should be an aggravating factor when it comes to sentencing - maybe always imprisonment.

Benefits & tax credits wide open to fraud

2011-12-01T11:50:00.000Z

They had two children in private education, owned homes worth more than £500,000 and enjoyed running around in luxury cars.

Friends could have been forgiven for thinking sisters Andrea and Roberta Vaughan-Owens had won the lottery.

In reality, however, their lavish lifestyle was funded by conning taxpayers out of £130,000 in benefits and tax credits.

On top of this they managed to trick insurance firms into paying their mortgages by claiming on employment protection policies – despite having no jobs. The scams were going swimmingly until the authorities smelt a rat and began to investigate.

But instead of lying low, the sisters dreamt up an even more audacious fraud – to try to get their hands on an astonishing £161million by claiming back VAT on a fictitious advertising deal with Liverpool Football Club.

And, perhaps unsurprisingly, that’s where they came unstuck.

Yesterday the sisters were both given three and a half year jail terms after being found guilty of fraud.

Judge Niclas Parry, sitting at Caernarfon Crown Court, attacked the ‘lax manner’ in which insurance companies, banks and ‘above all Government departments permitted such blatant fraud’. He said: ‘It’s no wonder this country is financially on its knees.’

In court, the pair were described as more ‘Laurel and Hardy than Bonnie and Clyde’. A jury was told they had a modest upbringing but soon acquired a taste for the high life.

Their fraud began in 2003 when the sisters started taking advantage of the ‘inept’ tax administration system. Between April 2003 and July 2008 they conned the taxpayer out of £120,000 in tax credits by pretending to work 16 hours a week for their own recruitment firm, when, in reality, they did nothing.

Administrators took their claims at face value, but, had they checked, would have discovered the pair were telling another Government department they were too ill to work in order to claim another £10,000 in incapacity benefit.

The sisters used the cash to pay for two of Andrea’s children to attend a private school in North Wales. They lived in a £400,000 detached property in Colwyn Bay, owned a second home worth £137,000 in nearby Caernarfon, enjoyed expensive spa treatments at an upmarket hotel, and drove around in luxury cars.

When authorities started investigating the tax credits scam in 2006, the sisters worked out another way to live rent free.

Despite being unemployed, Andrea managed to get a mortgage on the Colwyn Bay property by telling the bank she was a self-employed recruitment boss earning £120,000 a year.

She then took out insurance cover, ensuring the mortgage would be paid if she lost her ‘job’. Insurance firms handed over £30,808 in mortgage payments before the con was uncovered in the summer of 2007.

And that’s when the sisters came up with their VAT con. The pair thought that if they could secure invoices for multi-million pound properties and expensive cars, they could then claim back VAT as start up costs for two new businesses.

They inquired about purchasing several stately homes as well as a dozen Land Rovers and a £325,000 Rolls Royce Phantom.

However, when no one would provide them with invoices and banks and car dealerships refused them credit they submitted an application for a VAT rebate on a fictitious £920million deal to advertise their recruitment firm at Liverpool FC. The rebate was for £161million.

The demand set alarm bells ringing at the tax office and officials began to investigate.

Both women said the claim had been a mistake because they did not understand the forms. But a jury rejected their version of events.

Andrea, 42, was found guilty of eight counts of fraud, while Roberta, 37, a former police civilian worker, was convicted of five charges.

Benefit thieves do it for the money. They should know they will have to repay twice what they stole, and will get no benefits until they have.

Jail for £61k recidivist benefits thief 47 yr old gran

2011-12-01T00:01:00.010Z

A grandmother who claimed more than £60,000 in benefits she was not entitled to has been put behind bars.

Patricia Campbell was paid income support, housing benefit and given council tax relief on the basis she lived alone.

But Newcastle Crown Court heard over a five-and-a-half year period the mum-of-four lived with her husband, who was earning a wage.

The 47-year-old, who has paid back just £40 out of the £61,482, had already launched the scam when she was dealt with by the courts in 2004 for claiming handouts while working.

Judge Michael Cartlidge jailed the 47-year-old, from South Shields, for nine months.

The judge said: “She was not entitled to the benefits because she failed to mention that she was living with her husband, who was working.

“The overpayment is for £61,482. What this lady has done is deprive the community of more than £60,000, which she was not entitled to.

“The offending I have to sentence her for began in 2004. It was a time when she was about to be sentenced for dishonest representations she made between 2003 and 2004.”

Campbell had pleaded guilty to three offences of benefit fraud during a hearing last week.

Prosecutor Lee Fish told the court her claim for government help started out legitimately.

But Mr Fish said: “She has, however, been paid benefit to which she was not entitled as she failed to report a material change in her personal circumstances, namely that she was living with her husband who was in employment. This change occured in February 2004.”

He said his records show Campbell has paid back £40 of what she owes.

David Combe, defending, said Campbell, who has been in debt to loan sharks, looks after two of her young grandchildren as well as having four grown-up children. He urged the judge, to suspend the jail sentence.

Mr Combe said: “Others as much as her are likely to suffer if she went to prison immediately.

h/t Dave

Don't save and claim benefits

2011-11-30T00:01:00.005Z

A Stafford woman was able to claim thousands of pounds of benefits by not revealing she had more than £16,000 in savings.

Stafford Magistrates were told Elaine Banks, 39, had let a friend fill in the form to claim housing and council tax benefits as she was depressed because her partner was in prison.

The mother of four signed the benefits application form despite having just under £16,500 in a Britannia savings account, Moira Bell, prosecuting on behalf of Stafford Borough Council, told the court.

The mother of four received overpayments of £12,259 before being caught.

Banks, of Plant Crescent, Stafford, admitted not disclosing the 'capital' to Stafford Borough Council which would have affected her entitlement to benefits between January 2009 and July this year. Sentence was adjourned for a probation report to be prepared.

People with savings of more than £16,000 are not entitled to claim housing and council tax benefits. Anyone with any savings should declare them to the council when applying for benefit.

Mrs Bell, said: "She made a claim for housing and council tax benefit but did not tell the local authority that she had a savings account with just under £16,500 in."

The court heard she had not lived an extravagant lifestyle and had been putting money in to the savings account since she was 16 years old.

Another one with savings stealing benefits from us

2011-11-29T15:00:00.002Z

A Maidenhead woman who cheated council taxpayers out of more than £26,000 has been ordered to pay over £13,000 in compensation within seven days.

At East Berkshire Magistrates' Court Maidenhead on 30 September Mrs Shaheda Saeed, 59, of Winston Court, Halifax Road, pleaded guilty to 10 offences of failing to give prompt notification of a change affecting benefit entitlement. These were offences under Section 112 (1A) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992.

When Mrs Saeed appeared at East Berkshire Magistrates' Court Slough on Monday 21 November for sentencing she was ordered to pay £13,583.97, carry out 200 hours community payback within 18 months and pay costs of £200, also within seven days.

The balance of the overpayment will be collected by the Royal Borough's debt recovery team through an agreement with Mrs Saeed.

The case arose as a result of a housing benefit matching service referral which suggested that Mrs Saeed had failed to declare her true capital while claiming housing and council tax benefit. Further investigations revealed she had an undeclared bank credit of £46,776.81.

Between 12 March 2007 and 2 May 2011 Mrs Saeed received overpayments of £22,586.03 in housing benefit. Between 12 March 2007 and 28 April 2011 she received £3,538.97 in council tax benefit - a total of £26,125.

Andrew Brooker, head of finance, said: "Benefits are there as a support for those who are in real need. We will not hesitate to prosecute anyone who abuses the system in this way.

"We invite members of the public to contact us if they suspect benefit fraud and strongly advise anyone who has received overpayments to contact us as soon as possible so that the issue can be resolved."

The benefit fraud family

2011-11-29T11:25:00.000Z

THE mother of a motocross champion who pretended to be crippled has been sentenced for benefit fraud.

Julie Ann Preston, 43, a dental practice manager in Accrington, pocketed more than £34,000 after she claimed her son Jake Preston was crippled with a rare condition called syringomyelia.

He was filmed by fraud investigators winning a championships race.

The 20-year-old was handed a community order for falsely claiming £15,128 of disability living allowance over three years.

Preston was sentenced to two months in jail, suspended for 12 months, 200 hours unpaid work and ordered to pay £2,400 compensation.

She admitted the same fraud on DLA worth £34,615 between October 2001 and July 2007, relating to her claim for him while he was a youngster.

Preston admitted failing to notify the Department for Work and Pensions of a change in her son's circumstances, namely the improvement in his physical abilities.

The court heard it was not yet clear when her son's condition improved to the point where he no longer should have been claiming the benefits.

He had been racing bikes since the age of 10, competing in Holland at one point, and was filmed winning one race and coming third in another during the British Masters Motocoss Championships which took place in Whitby, North Yorkshire.

Preston had claimed the higher rate of disability living allowance (DLA), getting around £100 per week to pay for his care.

The higher rate of DLA was for people who are virtually housebound during the day and night.

He was convicted of a £15,128 benefit fraud because after he turned 16 in 2007, he made a claim for DLA in his own right, signing the form claiming he could not walk a yard without severe pain.

The Lancashire Care NHS Foundation Trust, which employs Julie Preston, said it will look into the ‘regrettable’ case.

How not to pay back your fraudulent benefit

2011-11-29T00:01:00.005Z

A man who falsely claimed £3,000 in housing benefit will not have to pay it back.

Instead, Gareth Haigh, from Cowlersley, has been handed a year-long community order, which includes supervision.

He will also have to pay a contribution to prosecution costs of £500.

Haigh appeared at Bradford Crown Court yesterday where he admitted one charge of fraudulently claiming benefit and one of making an article for use in fraud.

The offences dated back to between July 2009 and June 2010.

In total his fraudulent actions had resulted in an overpayment of around £3,000.

Judge Robert Bartfield said Haigh had been involved in a policy to deliberately deceive the local authority about what he was entitled to.

The court heard how Haigh had completed a fictitious tenancy agreement submitted in support of a housing benefit claim.

The fraud lasted almost a year, but the judge was told that the money had been paid on to someone else.

h/t Dave

A visitor writes

2011-11-28T09:16:00.000Z

It has been obvious for years - shown clearly by the comments here - that the UK benefit system is in a hopeless mess.

My neighbour was a benefit cheat for 17 years. Many people reported him, using all the recommended means, and no one took a blind bit of notice. If the government would put its house in order and set up a workable system of detection, punishing heavily those who are convicted, there would be more money for deserving people - without bankrupting the country.

Data matching nabs £19k benefit thief - but hardly any punishment

2011-11-28T00:01:00.002Z

A 61-year-old Minster woman has been given a curfew order after pleading guilty to benefit fraud.

Daphne Tanner claimed almost £20,000 worth of benefits she was not entitled to, of which just under £14,000 was income support.

On November 8, Tanner was sentenced at Maidstone Magistrates' Court for two offences of making false representations against the Department for Work and Pensions, as well as four offences of making false claims to Swale Council.

The court heard how Tanner made a total of six false representations when she failed to declare on the benefit claim form that she had received income from her widow's pension. The fraud was established on July 13 this year when it was identified through a monthly data match against other Government agency computer records.

In total, she fraudulently received housing benefit of £4,232.19, council tax benefit of £1,316.76 and income support worth £13,828.10.

Tanner was handed a curfew order between the hours 7pm and 7am. It will be relaxed for Christmas Day when she can remain out until 9pm.

Investigation team leader Janice Watts said: "We share a collective commitment to tackling all welfare benefit fraud."

This "collective commitment" doesn't seem to extend to the judiciary, though.

Benefit thieves do it for the money. They should know they will have to pay back twice what they stole, and that they will get no benefits until they have. A confiscation order should be made immediately.

Any benefit thieves who don't go to prison should also have to do community service.

Empty threat of prison for £20k benefits thief

2011-11-26T00:01:00.002Z

A £20,000 benefits cheat was "relieved" that she was finally found out, a court heard last week.

Mum-of-two Alison Kerr (37) had found it increasingly difficult to live with the deceit, Banff Sheriff Court was told.

But the longer it went on, the harder it was to own up.

"She just stuck her head in the sand," said defence lawyer Stuart Beveridge.

Kerr made false claims that she was a lone parent over a three-year period between January, 2005, and January, 2008.

She had originally been entitled to the money, Mr Beveridge said, but when her long-term partner sold his own house and moved in with her she failed to notify the Department of Works and Pensions.

The fraud only came to light because Ms Kerr appeared in court on a domestic violence incident involving her partner, Kenneth White.

Alert benefits staff saw the case reported in the Press, and in-depth inquiries revealed that Mr White had been living with her - thereby making her claims fraudulent.

Mr White insisted to investigating officers that he lived with his mother at her sheltered home, but staff there said they had never seen him. Other detailed inquiries made it clear that 29 Temple View was his home.

As a result of Ms Kerr's deception, she was able to obtain housing benefit, council tax benefit and income support.

Last week, Mr Beveridge said: "She now feels relieved that the matter is out in the open.

"It was constantly hanging over her. She was sticking her head in the sand.

"The longer it went on, the harder it was for her to admit what she had done.

"She takes full responsibility for what she did, and very much regrets it.

"She knows it is a burden to the tax payer, and accepts that it is a serious enough matter for the court to consider a custodial sentence.

"She has no previous convictions and is willing to repay the money."

Sheriff Patrick Davies told Kerr: "Cases of this sort involving this amount of money would readily justify a significant period of imprisonment.

"Fraud like this is a serious crime but appears all too frequently, and I would be sending out an appropriate message to others if I was to impose a prison sentence."

The sheriff said that because of the impact that would have on her children, he was prepared to order her to carry out 200 hours community service.

He pointed out that the Department of Works and Pensions could take out civil proceedings to recoup the money she defrauded, or make deductions from any benefit she is still receiving.

Suspended sentence for £44k benefits fraud

2011-11-25T13:29:00.000Z

An Army veteran who claimed almost £45,000 in benefits he wasn’t entitled to has been handed a suspended prison sentence at Nottingham Crown Court.

John Cornet, 68, was prosecuted by Newark and Sherwood District Council after he failed to declare his Armed Forces’ Pension while in receipt of Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit, Income Support and Pension Credit.

The amount of benefit illegally claimed totalled £44,272.

The council also prosecuted Cornet for the offences against the Department for Work and Pensions.

Cornet was due to stand trial on November 2 on five counts of dishonestly making false statements between 2001 and 2009.

However, he changed his plea to guilty, and was sentenced on November 23 2011 at Nottingham Crown Court to 18 weeks’ imprisonment on each count, suspended for 15 months, to run concurrently.

The sentence also included a requirement for Cornet to reside at his current address for the next six months.

On sentencing, His Honour Judge John Milmo QC said: “It is a thousand pities to see you here and would be a shock to your former colleagues.

"Take full account that the prosecution accept that the claim was not fraudulent from the outset but you did bluntly go away with £44,000 which could have been paid to a more deserving person.

“As I have said, you are of good character and service record and stand in good stead at this stage. Your punishment is that you have lost your good character.”

Newark and Sherwood District Council’s director- resources, David Dickinson, said: “The benefits system exists to help people who are not in a position to support themselves financially.

“Unfortunately, the system is sometimes abused by people often of previous good character, but it is always incumbent upon the council and its partners, regardless of who has committed the crime, to prosecute those who abuse the system, and we will continue to do so.”

From the benefit fraud front line

2011-11-25T08:00:00.018Z

Earlier this month I put up a short post about East European people trafficking and benefit fraud.

It's attracted this comment from a visitor:

As a former Benefit Fraud Investigator, I can categorically state that this case is JUST THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG!

When someone...anyone... in this or any other elected Government gets to realise the FULL extent of the carefully construed frauds against our benefit system; all hell will break loose.

It's okay them all bleating about "benefit fraud's taken very seriously". I was on the front line and can categorically state... NO IT IS NOT!

With Managers 'terrified' of having to put their full weight behind POCA cases and Investigators being forced to take the 'easy' prosecution options, i.e. go for the pensioners... the 'real' criminals continue to get away with it.

Benefit Fraud stats/costs aren't real or true; so I'm afraid people, be prepared to be very afraid when and if someone bothers to get to grips with the catastrophic benefit fraud being perpetrated against us. Be very afraid indeed!

I don't know the anonymous visitor, so I can't verify this. But the comments echo others made in the past - click the label "from the front line" at the end of this post.

This blog agrees that the fraud numbers are understated in order to give the impression that the problem of benefit fraud is being contained. Resources for enforcement are woefully inadequate, the system for enforcement is clunky, and if benefit fraud was prosecuted energetically the judicial system would be overwhelmed.

And the few who are caught often get away with trivial sentences - click on the "light sentences" label at the end for some startling examples.

The issue of benefit fraud was important to voters whom Ed Miliband met recently. One reporter remarked that

Where Miliband was less comfortable was on discussing benefit fraud, something that clearly exercised an awful lot of the people in the room.

It's another of those issues important to voters which politicians prefer to brush under the carpet. So this campaigning blog will keep niggling away.

To those who are or who have been on the benefit front line: From time to time the blog is contacted by journalists or television programme makers. If you want to be put in touch when such requests come along, you can contact me through the website - see the link in the header.

Two Tamworth benefit thieves

2011-11-25T00:01:00.001Z

Two Tamworth men have been sentenced to 12 month Community Orders and ordered to pay back the thousands they falsely claimed in benefits.

Paul Casey and Eric Meredith pleaded guilty separately to failing to notify a change in their circumstances.

Casey failed to declare that he was working for a period of 18 months while still claiming Jobseekers Allowance and Council Tax Benefit.

His total overpayment was £16,192, made up of £1,493 Council Tax Benefit and £14,699 Job Seekers Allowance. Mr Casey pleaded guilty to the charge when he attended Burton Magistrates Court on Tuesday November 15.

He was given a 12-month Community Order, 200 hours unpaid work and ordered to pay £100 costs. He was also told to pay back the £16,192 which he unlawfully claimed.

On the same day Eric Meredith was also prosecuted at Burton Magistrates Court. Mr Meredith pleaded guilty to failing to declare that his wife had been working while they were claiming Incapacity Benefit, Income Support, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit.

The total overpayment was £18,144, made up of £2,378 Incapacity Benefit, £13,830 Income Support, £1,473 Housing Benefit and £462 Council Tax Benefit. Mr Meredith was given a 12-month Community Rehabilitation Order, a 12-month supervision order and told to pay £100 costs. Meredith was also ordered to pay back the overpayment of £18,144.

A lighter sentence for stealing more.

Benefit thieves do it for the money. They should know they will have to pay back twice what they stole, and that they will get no benefits until they have. A confiscation order should be made immediately.

Any benefit thieves who don't go to prison should also have to do community service.

Tip-off fingers £18k benefit thief

2011-11-24T12:49:00.000Z

A benefit cheat who falsely claimed over £18,000 has been ordered to carry out unpaid work.

Lindsay Cleminshaw, from Heywood, pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining benefit payments after failing to notify Rochdale Borough Council and the Department for Works and Pensions (DWP) that she was living with her partner who was in full time employment.

She had received housing benefit, council tax benefit, and income support payments totalling £18,870 over two years which she wasn’t entitled to.

A joint investigation was launched after an anonymous referral was received by the Benefit Fraud Hotline, and Miss Cleminshaw admitted the offences during an interview under caution.

At Rochdale Magistrates Court she was sentenced to a Community Punishment Order and will have to carry out 80 hours of unpaid work, in addition to repaying £12,329 to the council and £6,441 to the DWP.

Councillor Farooq Ahmed, Cabinet Member for Finance said: “This serves as a warning to others who are withholding information in order to dishonestly receive benefits they are not entitled to. They can be sure we will continue to investigate and prosecute deliberate fraudsters.”

Jail for £45k benefit fraud

2011-11-24T00:01:00.002Z

A bus supervisor has been jailed for falsely claiming £45,000 in benefits.

David William Thompson, 51, claimed carer's allowance for almost eight years by pretending he was looking after his elderly mother.

He actually only looked after her for a few months, before getting a full-time job as an EYMS bus supervisor in Hull.

Thompson has now been jailed for eight months after his scam was exposed.

Hull Crown Court heard Thompson was given carer's allowance in 2001 on the grounds he looked after his mother for 35 hours a week.

He also claimed income support on the basis he had no job, along with housing and council tax benefit.

Thompson failed to declare he returned to work in 2002 for EYMS and was working 40 hours a week.

Prosecutor Claire Reed said: "He continued to receive benefits for caring for his mother, who lived in Patrington, despite the fact he was working full-time and living in Hull."

Thompson came to the attention of Hull City Council and the Department Of Work And Pensions in 2009 and was interviewed.

He denied the offences and claimed his late father had told him it was "OK" to work at the same time as care for his mother.

However, in later interviews he claimed he "could not remember" why he had not notified the authorities about changes in his circumstances.

He pleaded guilty to two counts of benefit fraud between April 2002 and September 2009.

Judge David Tremberg told Thompson: "You began to claim benefits around November 2001 for a valid reason, but a few months on your circumstances changed.

"You worked week after week, month after month and year after year and continued to receive benefits for a period of seven and a half years.

"You claimed £45,000 in benefits to which you were not entitled.

"In my judgment, such offending is so serious only a custodial sentence is appropriate for it.

"I bear in mind that this will be your first taste of custody, and your age."

The court heard Thompson has previous convictions for dishonesty.

Peter Shipp, EYMS group chairman and chief executive, said: "He has been a very good employee.

"We knew nothing of this until the outcome of the court case and we were very surprised. We will have to consider his position."

Hull City Council's assistant head of service for audit and fraud, Peter Holland, said: "Benefit fraud affects every household in the country.

"It is not a victimless crime. All taxpayers are victims, as are the majority of claimants who are honest.

"The council has a duty to preserve public money and to make sure that assistance goes to those who genuinely need it.

"This sentence demonstrates just how serious the crime of benefit fraud is.

"We will continue to use all powers at our disposal to ensure those who abuse the system are dealt with in the appropriate manner."

Thompson is expected to have to repay the amount on his release from prison.