Benefit fraud

A benefit cheat fiddled more than £14,600 by keeping quiet that he was working and that a physical condition had improved.

He claimed four different types of benefit over about five-and-a-half years, a court heard.

Andrew Foster, 34, from Kirton in Lindsey, admitted six fraud offences by failing to disclose information between November 2010 and July 2016.

Andrew Stirling, prosecuting, told Grimsby magistrates that Foster claimed housing benefit, jobseeker's allowance, employment support allowance and personal independent payment allowance.

He did not declare that a medical condition had improved and that his partner was working.

David Rix, mitigating, said that Foster was taking money from "taxpayers" and "from you and me" during the fraud.

"£14,000 is a lot of money," said Mr Rix. "I think he has learned his lesson. It was not at all sophisticated."

Although Foster wrongly took money, he would have had money deducted in tax and national insurance from his work earnings.

"His big mistake was not telling the people he should tell," said Mr Rix.

Foster got into financial difficulties and got a job driving a van - "but not a white van" - and he was relieved when the matters came to light.

Foster was given 300 hours' unpaid work and was ordered to pay £85 costs and a Government-imposed £85 victims' surcharge.

Source

A fraudster who used state benefits to help finance his property deals has been ordered to pay back £24,190.20.

Colin Blake, 67, claimed £26,500 in pension credits over some years, despite having a £38,000 pension pot and £106,000 from the sale of his home, York Crown Court heard last August.

Andrew Semple, prosecuting, said Blake used his money to buy a property in East Yorkshire and one in France. Pension credits can only be claimed by people with less than £16,000 in savings.

Blake, who the court heard was living in a van in a field at Low Catton, near Stamford Bridge, was given a ten-month prison sentence suspended for 18 months with a four-month curfew in August. He admitted benefit fraud.

When the case returned to court for a confiscation hearing, Tony Kelbrick, prosecuting, said financial experts had calculated that Blake had benefited by £24,190.20 from his crime, after the repayments he has already made were taken into account.

His assets including a house he is selling were more than that.

Judge Andrew Stubbs QC ordered him to pay a £24,190.20 confiscation order within three months, or face 12 months in jail.

Source

Plymouth benefit cheats were convicted of swindling £850,000 from the public purse in 2017, shocking new figures reveal.

Forty-three defendants were sentenced in city courts last year, statistics show.

Figures released by the DWP show the number of people with PL postcodes convicted of false benefit claims.

The figures cover years of previous overpayments – with people pocketing money to which they are not entitled.

Judges have repeatedly warned defendants that the money they swindle could have been spent on schools and hospitals. But few are sent straight to prison, walking free to pay back the money they owe – again often over a period of years.

Figures include offences involving dishonesty, and separate charges which involve oversight rather than fraud.

The figures only include those people prosecuted in court. The DWP accepts offers of repayment from other false claimants, usually of smaller amounts which would be dwarfed by the costs of bringing a case.

A spokesman for the DWP said: “The department takes its responsibility to detect, prevent and recover benefit fraud very seriously as the money paid in benefits is taxpayer’s money. It is right that we ensure it is paid correctly, and recover any money that is paid incorrectly.”

Among false claimants convicted at Plymouth Crown Court last year was 54-year-old Jenette Bishop, who swindled more than £85,000. She pocketed three types of payment claiming she was living alone over a period of nine years – when in fact she shared a house with a partner who was in paid work.

Bishop, from Eggbuckland, pleaded guilty to three counts of dishonesty, failing to notify a change of circumstances affecting a benefit claim on different dates from March 2005 to December 2014.

Plymouth Crown Court heard how she had claimed benefits while going on several holidays with her partner. She was handed an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for two years after the judge said he could take “personal issues” into account.

Another woman told lies about her own and her husband’s income so she could pocket more than £30,000 in benefits – lavishing some of the cash on a trip to Australia.

Recruitment consultant Barbara Jones, aged 46, repeatedly submitted false accounts grossly underestimating the household earnings, Plymouth Crown Court heard in April.

Jones, from Efford, admitted six charges of making false statements to obtain benefit between 2011 and 2015. The court heard that she was already paying back benefits at a rate of £150 per month, which will take 15 years to pay back. She was handed a 10-week jail term, suspended for 12 months, with 180 hours unpaid work. She must pay £1,000 prosecution costs.

More

A cousin of the Duchess of Cornwall was remanded in custody and warned that he faced certain jail after admitting “significant and sophisticated” benefit frauds.

Dru Edmonstone, whose great-grandmother Alice Keppel, Edward VII’s mistress, is also the duchess’s great-grandmother, ran scams against the state, Stirling council and Kensington & Chelsea council in London.

Using the names of his sister, his former wife, a former housekeeper and an employee of his 83-year-old father, Sir Archibald Edmonstone of Duntreath, he submitted bogus claims for income support, tax credits, carer’s allowance and disability living allowance.

Edmonstone, 46, who lives in a house on the 6,000-acre Stirlingshire estate that his family were given by King Robert III in 1435, also fraudulently obtained thousands of pounds in housing benefit, some for renting a mews cottage in Kensingston. Stirling sheriff court was told yesterday that between January 2014 and April last year, Edmonstone obtained £60,000 in bogus benefits, channelling the money into high-risk spread-betting.

Kyrsten Buist, for the prosecution, said that the scam came to light when his sister, Elyssa Edmonstone, who has lived abroad since 2010, inquired about “making additional payments to her UK national insurance account”.

She discovered that the address the Department for Work and Pensions had for her was not one that she had ever lived at, but was her brother’s home. Ms Buist said: “She confronted him in the presence of their mother and he ultimately admitted he had made the claims using his sister’s name and her NI number. He signed a declaration admitting he had made the claims without her knowledge or consent and the admissions were recorded by his sister.”

DWP investigators found that he had made phone calls to them pretending to be Elyssa Edmonstone.

Hanging his head and occasionally appearing to cry, Edmonstone admitted fraud. Other allegations were dropped.

John Mulholland, in mitigation, said that Edmonstone had been diagnosed with a personality disorder. He said: “His conduct has been bizarre.”

Remanding Edmonstone in custody for reports, Sheriff Wyllie Robertson told him: “Irrespective of questions of repayment, it is still a very significant figure and a custodial sentence is inevitable.” Edmonstone will be sentenced on February 21.

A father conned the taxpayer out of thousands of pounds by dishonestly claiming benefits in a bid to avoid spending his £30,000 “nest egg”.

Abdul Mubarak, 57, from Cardiff, falsely claimed more than £15,000 in Employment and Support Allowance which he was not entitled to as his savings were double the amount allowed.

Sentencing at Cardiff Crown Court, Judge Thomas Crowther QC said benefit fraud was “corrosive” to public trust in the benefit system.

The court heard the offending occurred between February 2012 and April 2016.

Prosecutors said the defendant would have been allowed savings of £16,000 and still been eligible for the benefit. But he failed to tell the DWP that he had savings ranging from £24,000 to £37,000 across the four years.

The court heard his claim was fraudulent from the outset and the overpayments totalled £15,440.60.

Mubarak told a probation officer he owed money to a man in Libya and did not declare it because he did not view it as his own money. He said it was “a question of honour” but accepted that the bank account was in his name.

He admitted fraud. Derrick Gooden, defending, told the court his client had no previous convictions. He said he was no longer claiming Employment and Support Allowance but his family depend on Child Benefit and Child Tax Credit. Mubarak was judged by the Probation Service to present a low risk of re-offending.

Judge Crowther said: “This claim was fraudulent from the very beginning. You cannot have believed you were entitled and you were not. You made a simple decision to live off public money rather than live off your nest egg.

The judge found Mubarak’s explanation was not consistent with the money having been in his account for five years. He added: “Benefit fraud is serious because it depletes the public purse. It diverts the money from the needy and entitled to those who are less needy and not entitled.”

Mubarak was jailed for 30 weeks and there will be a hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act on May 30.

Donna James, district fraud manager for the Department for Work and Pensions, said: “When people commit benefit theft they do not get away with it."

That's a lie.

Source

A benefit fraud reader comments on this post:

This is going on every single day. People from the EU come into my place of work and make up all sorts of stories about where they are from etc. They also move over to Britain, move into a really bad place to live and then come into the council and demand Social Housing. When they get it, they then move in loads of other people and then say they are living in over crowded conditions and they get a larger house. After 5 years they are allowed to buy their Social House, making an instant profit and depleting the Social Housing stock.They are even allowed to buy their Social House even if they have been in rent arrears while tenants. They sign up to all the benefits and usually get them. Some of them are claiming more benefits then I get paid and they are for doing nothing for this money, because as I often hear from them "they are entitled to it".

The whole system is a complete joke. Its not just people from the EU that do this, it is people born in Britain that think they are "entitled" to live off the working.

The Data Protection Act allows this to happen, as we are not allowed to share information with other departments within the council or other councils. People often move areas and do the same thing again. If you are not going to commit a crime you would not mind your data been shared with other government services. Wake up government, any government. Put the GREAT back in Britain. If Departments could share information, people would not get away with so much fraud, thus reducing the costs of it.

Political success in benefit fraud enforcement is to keep the detected fraud numbers falling slowly. This demonstrates "improvement" and "success".

Note it has nothing to do with the actual level of benefit fraud. If the government put more resources into detecting benefit fraud (for instance identifying patterns like this one), the total of fraud identified would go up.

This would free up money for the government to spend on other things. But admitting to a higher level of benefit fraud would attract political criticism - criticism any government would rather do without.

Anything for a quiet life. Even though better enforcement would benefit taxpayers.

A Lamphey man has been fined after pleading guilty to four charges of benefit fraud.

Fifty-year-old Lee Ronald Pitman admitted two counts of failing to notify the DWP of a change of circumstances that would affect his entitlement to benefits such as employment support allowance and job seekers allowance, between March and September, 2013; and January 2014 and November 2015, when he appeared at Haverfordwest Magistrates Court.

He also pleaded guilty to making a false statement to obtain job seekers allowance between August and November of 2015; and failing to notify Pembrokeshire County Council of a change of circumstances that would effect his entitlement to housing benefit between March, 2013 and October, 2015.

Prosecutor Vaughan Pritchard-Jones told the court that the overpayment came to over £6,500:

“Over this period of time, Mr. Pitman worked for five different firms on a casual basis. He did declare some periods of work to the authorities, but not others. Following the investigation, I understand that the defendant has already paid a sum of it back. He has been out of trouble for some 27 years, when he had various convictions, including a six-year custodial sentence for robbery."

Defence solicitor Mike Kelleher told the court that Mr. Pitman had been in and out of work as a contractor for some time.

“Some of the earnings were declared, but some had slipped by the way. He has apologised for what happened, and in the region of £7,000 has been paid back, so nobody is at a loss here. The convictions are likely to effect his future employment,” added Mr. Kelleher.

Magistrates fined Mr. Pitman a total of £1,200 for the four offences and ordered him to pay prosecution costs of £85 and a £30 victim surcharge.

Source

A benefits cheat who swindled more than £12,000 has been caught on camera working as a courier.

Paul Carter, from Orford in Suffolk, fraudulently claimed thousands of pounds in living allowances and tax credits over a four-and-a-half year period to May 2016.

The 56-year-old has been sentenced to a 12-week community order after admitting two counts of benefit fraud at Warrington Magistrates Court.

He was accused by Government officials of 'cheating the system and diverting taxpayers' money from those who really need it'.

Carter's fraud was uncovered by investigators from the DWP, who filmed him carrying large boxes from his van.

The surveillance footage was captured as part of a joint investigation with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs.

Carter will also be subject to a curfew of 4pm to 4am until Wednesday, April 11.

He was ordered to pay an £85 victim surcharge plus Crown Prosecution Service costs of £85.

A DWP spokesman said: 'Only a small minority of benefit claimants are dishonest, but cases like this show how we are rooting out the unscrupulous minority who are cheating the system and diverting taxpayers' money from those who really need it. We are determined to find those we suspect of abusing the welfare system by following up on tip-offs, undertaking surveillance and working with local councils.'

Source with pictures

A benefits cheat who conned taxpayers out of £30,000 left court a free man after a judge spared him prison.

Philip Edwards, 65, lied to authorities by repeatedly filing misleading applications for Employment Support Allowance and Pension Credit.

Victoria Shehadeh, prosecuting at Chelmsford Crown Court, outlined a list of dishonest applications the retired welder had made over a period of six years.

She said: “This was sustained and repeated fraud. The applications were made from 2009, spanning all the way through to 2015, with a total overpayment of £30,708. The defendant had a number of savings accounts in which he was keeping capital not declared.”

She added: “The factor which is most striking about this case, is that the defendant was interviewed not once, but twice by authorities. While he was relatively frank with the authority about what he had been doing, he then went on to make a final claim, which shows disregard for the benefits system.”

Edwards admitted five charges of benefit fraud, two relating to Employment Support Allowance and three to Pension Credit.

Christopher Whitcombe, mitigating, said Edwards, from Colchester, was remorseful and would “pay back every penny”.

He said: “He had around £40,000 in life savings and had worked full-time as a welder in Germany. When he returned to the UK he went to a smaller property and was subject to financial fraud. He lost a large amount of money due to false investments.”

Recorder Kenneth Carr sentenced Edwards to ten months in prison, suspended for 12 months and ordered him to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work.

He said: “Over the course of six years you embarked repeatedly on a course of dishonest conduct, by which you received £30,000 from the state to which you were not entitled. That money is money allocated to the poorest section of society, those most in need.”

Source

Benefit thieves do it for the money. They should have to pay back twice what they stole.

They should not be eligible for any benefits until they have, and they should have to do some unpaid work every week until the debt to society is cleared.

That would be a deterrent.

A confiscation order should be made immediately.

Hit them in the pocket!

A 51-year-old benefit cheat who was overpaid £26,000 has been ordered to pay a £16,660 confiscation order.

Before Ipswich Crown Court was Dale Sunderland, 51, who pleaded guilty last year to two offences of making a false statement to obtain benefit dating back to 2012.

The total overpayment over 197 weeks was £26,275.

He was sentenced to a six month supervision order in July last year.

He has now returned to court for a hearing under the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Stephen Mather, prosecuting, said Sunderland’s criminal benefit from his offending was £25,505 and the available amount was £16,600.

Judge David Goodin ordered Sunderland to pay a £16,600 confiscation order of which £14,725 will be paid as compensation to Ipswich Borough Council.

At Sunderland’s sentencing hearing the court heard that he had claimed he had around £10,000 in bank accounts and premium bonds when his total capital was £34,592.

Source

A benefit cheat who pocketed £48,000 in disability handouts was busted after being caught on hidden camera carrying heavy items.

Michael Holland was also filmed easily getting in and out of a van while working as a labourer for Aspire Housing – despite claiming he could only walk 30 yards.

Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court heard he had ‘grossly exaggerated’ his condition ‘from day one’ to claim disability living allowance over 21 years.

Now the dad-of-three, from Blurton, has been jailed for 10 months.

Prosecutor Nick Tatlow said the Department for Works and Pensions (DWP) carried out secret surveillance on the defendant from September 3 to September 22, 2015.

Mr Tatlow said: “He was carrying out ordinary duties. He was seen getting in and out of the van without any difficulty. He was able to walk without difficulty or discomfort. He was seen carrying heavy items. He was seen to carry out all the ordinary duties of a manual labourer. His immediate supervisor described him as being able to walk 90 yards across the yard at normal pace without difficulty.”

The court heard the defendant’s original claim in February 1995 was refused and the decision was upheld after he asked for it to be reviewed. But Holland sought help from the Citizens Advice Bureau (CAB) and it was claimed on his behalf that his situation was so bad he could only manage to walk 50 yards before having to stop a few times a week.

However, it was stated that most of the time he could only manage 30 yards, and it would take him 10 minutes to cover those distances.

Mr Tatlow said: “The true position is very different. He worked for Aspire Housing and the only condition he notified to his employer was that he suffered with sciatica.”

Holland pleaded guilty to cheating the public revenue to the tune of £47,913.

Sarah Magill, mitigating, conceded the offending passed the custody threshold but urged Judge Paul Glenn to suspend any sentence.

She said: “His right leg is deformed and causes him to walk in a disjointed manner. He accepts the claim was dishonest from the outset. It was not a complete fabrication. He has never hidden the fact he has been working.”

Judge Glenn told Holland: “You accept dishonesty in the making of the original claim in that you exaggerated your mobility care needs. This is a serious case because your dishonesty was there from day one. You persisted in dishonestly claiming for 21 years almost £48,000 which could have been spent on genuine and worthy causes. You were receiving about £2,000 a year tax free.”

More

A woman has been kicked out of her council house after admitting she already owned a three-bedroom home.

Gillian Norris has been living in social housing in Great Milton for more than four years, having fraudently applied via the housing register.

The 46-year-old has been ordered to pay £1,530 after councils discovered she already owned a home in Holyhead, Wales, at the time of applying.

Councillors said she 'deprived a family in genuine need of a house', and stressed social housing fraud is not a 'victimless crime'.

Norris, of Green Hitchings in Great Milton, pleaded guilty at Oxford Magistrates' Court to one charge of knowingly or recklessly making a false statement in connection to the allocation of housing.

It is the first time someone has been convicted for housing fraud in South Oxfordshire.

Magistrates heard she had been living in the three-bedroom SOHA Housing house, and had been renting out her other home to a family member.

Norris would not have been eligible to apply for social housing if she had disclosed that she already owned the property.

She was caught following an anonymous tip-off and subsequent investigation by SOHA Housing, South Oxfordshire District Council and Oxford City Council.

Following her guilty plea on January 30, Norris was fined £250 and ordered to pay £1,250 and a £30 victim surcharge.

Jane Murphy, deputy leader of the district council, said: “Social housing is there to provide a vital resource for those who are in genuine need and do not have the money available to rent a home privately. We have a significant housing shortage, not just in South Oxfordshire but across the country, with people really struggling to find appropriate accommodation. By making and maintaining this fraudulent claim this lady has effectively deprived a family in genuine need of a house.”

The councils are now working make the home available again on the housing register.

More

This is a trivial sentence for taking up social housing for four years.

An ex-British Steel worker hid his £75,000 lump sum pension payment so that he could continue to claim over £17,000 in benefits.

Robert Mason admitted fraudulently claiming £17,864 in unemployment support allowance and housing benefit between May 2015 and January 2017, Teesside Crown Court heard.

The 62-year-old failed to notify authorities that he had received a lump sum pension which meant he wouldn’t have been entitled to the benefits.

Christopher Baker, prosecuting, said Mason had the amount paid into a separate bank account in order to “hide” the funds and prevent it from affecting his benefits claim.

“All the money was paid into the account of an unknown third party,” he said, adding that the total overpayment was made up of £8,279 in income support benefit and £9,584 housing benefit.

Sarah Lish, defending, said: “My client’s claims for benefits were not fraudulent from the start. He legitimately made the claims in 2010 after suffering from a stroke. He worked for 40 years for British Steel and, in 2015, he made a lump sum request from his pension.

“He effectively didn’t believe he was going to be long for this world. If he didn’t claim it, it would be lost. His family has a history of heart disease and cancer - he frankly believes he has one foot through the pearly gates at all times.

“He accepts knowing it was a change of circumstances that would affect his benefits. He accepts that he failed to report it.”

Ms Lish asked Judge Howard Crowson to take into account Mason’s guilty pleas and, considering his poor health, requested that any custodial sentence be suspended.

Sentencing Mason, Judge Crowson said: “This is one of those cases where we had a genuine claim which became fraudulent at a later date.”

But just as the judge began to mention Mason’s £75,000 lump sum pension payment, the defendant interrupted: “The prosecution service have had all my bank receipts about where the money went. I didn’t know it was there.”

Judge Crowson said: “Well it must have been a wonderful surprise to you to find you had £75,000 to spend, as you did on your family. That you concealed it to ensure benefits agencies wouldn’t know about it is an aggravating feature.”

Mason, of Stump Cross, Guisborough , was given a six-month prison sentence suspended for 12 months and a three-month curfew restricting his movements on evenings.

A separate confiscation hearing will be held on May 15 to look at recovering the overpaid money.

Source

A benefits cheat has admitted a £48,000 fraud after failing to declare she had a home in London during a decade-long deception.

Sarah Kain, from Warndon Villages, Worcester has yet to sell her London home to free up cash to pay back the money she swindled from the state, claiming she cannot put the house on the market because a tenant is still living there.

The 51-year-old was warned she could go to jail after she admitted five counts of benefit fraud over a period of 10 years (between 2007 and 2017) when she appeared before judge Robert Juckes QC at Worcester Crown Court on Wednesday.

Wearing a white coat and scarf, Kain was asked to stand in the dock of court one as the charges were formally put to her by the clerk of the court.

Kain admitted five counts of making a dishonest representation to obtain benefit for herself (housing and council tax benefit) by making a false statement to Worcester City Council in that she failed to provide information that she had capital in the form of a property in Marathon Way, London.

The first count on the indictment was from January 9, 2007 and the last count related to a 'like offence' of benefit fraud on February 16, 2017.

Belinda Ariss, for Kain, said the amount involved in the fraud was £48,000 which she her client received over 10 years and related to housing tax benefit and council tax benefit.

Judge Juckes said the offences crossed the custody threshold and asked Miss Ariss whether her client had sold her London home to pay back any of the money.

Miss Ariss said: "She has a tenant in the property in London. She is in the process of putting it on the market subject to the tenancy agreement. It's a long term tenant. If it didn't have a tenant in it, it would clearly be on the market and sold by now."

William Dudley, prosecuting, said a proceeds of crime timetable had been drawn up and a statement of the defendant's assets should be served by the defence by March 14.

Judge Juckes asked Kain to stand and told her to make contact with a probation officer at the court so a report could be prepared before a sentencing hearing in a fortnight.

He renewed her bail, which had been unconditional, but asked her to make contact with the probation officer inside the court before she left the building.

Judge Juckes said: "The adjournment for a report isn't an indication of the type of sentence that will follow. That will be a matter for the court on the next occasion when all options remain open."

Source

A conman who netted £284,000 from a huge VAT fraud and fiddling disability benefits has been jailed for four-and-a-half years.

Keiran Alastair Farrer, 38, used the money he obtained during years of deception to fund a lavish lifestyle, splashing out on expensive holidays and flying lessons costing more than £50,000.

He submitted dozens of tax returns for business purchases allegedly worth £2m, Carlisle crown court heard.

Those lucrative - and dishonest - VAT refund claims were discovered by fraud investigators looking into his benefits claim.

Farrer twice submitted false claims for Disability Living Allowance (DLA), dishonestly bringing him £41,000 over six years.

He told officials from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that he suffered from mental health problems and mobility problems so severe he had to use a wheelchair.

But covert surveillance by DWP investigators captured images of the defendant walking comfortably without a wheelchair, often while puffing on a cigarette. His VAT fraud, perpetrated over three years, saw him cream off £243,000 in refunds for business transactions that were entirely imaginary, the court heard.

The defendant, from Whinsmoor Drive, Harraby, Carlisle, admitted a VAT fraud which ran from October 2013 to July of last year; and he also pleaded guilty to twice making dishonest statements to obtain DLA by exaggerating his mobility restrictions and his personal care needs.

These offences were committed between 2010 and 2016.

At Carlisle Crown Court, Judge Peter Hughes QC was told that Farrer had an "appalling" record for crimes of dishonesty. His record consisted of 104 criminal offences, including theft and a previous fraud in 2014.

The judge referred to the previous fraud case, which he dealt with, saying: "I am told that at the time I said you were a thoroughly dishonest man. How right I was."

In August 2013, Farrer was registered as the proprietor of a car and van leasing company.

Its website told potential customers: "We specialise in sourcing the best car contract hire and van leasing special offers for both businesses and individuals from a range of automotive funders and dealers."

Over the period of the VAT fraud, said prosecutor Brendan Burke, Farrer submitted 34 bogus returns in which he claimed to have paid invoices for supplies worth £2m.

The barrister said:"As far as the crown is concerned, this business was more or less fictional in its entirety."

During the period of the fraud, Farrer took flying lessons at Carlisle Airport as he worked at gaining his pilot's licence.

Outside court in December last year, Farrer claimed he had been genuinely unwell following a crush injury at work in 2006.

He said: "I've been working as a driver and paying back money. Nobody told me to do that."

He suggested his original claim was genuine, and that his offending resulted of his illness.

In court today, Farrer wept as he was led from the dock to begin his sentence.

Source

The wife of a marathon runner was branded 'devious, manipulative, greedy for other people's money' as she was found guilty of helping in a disability benefit fraud.

April Totterdell was described as 'a liar of epic proportions' and warned she faced immediate jail for conniving with her then husband Graham to fake a disability to get £38,491.60 over 57 months.

The 48-year-old mother-of-two denied fraud but a jury at Canterbury Crown Court took just 50 minutes to convict her rejecting her claim she acted under duress.

Her husband had pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing and the pair will be sentenced next week.

Judge James O'Mahony told her: 'This case demonstrates in sharp focus that you are devious, manipulative, greedy for other people's money - even when you had plenty of your own - and a liar of epic proportions.'

He then read from her application form that she had to wash her husband's face, put toothpaste on a brush, help him shower and cut his hair and nails.

He said: 'Pure lies - he was running marathons around the country! You tried to manipulate this court and you failed. You now face immediate custody.'

Earlier prosecutor Ian Foinette revealed Mr Totterdell's claim of incapacity 'was simply not true' even though he had an accident in the past.

He said: 'Undoubtedly, he was injured but what he was claiming for was considerably more than that.'

The prosecutor said Mrs Totterdell knew 'full well' his claims of that level of injury were 'simply not the case.'

'While he was claiming benefit and for a large portion of the time he was actually competing in half marathons and the London Marathon. And at the same time he was suggesting to the DWP, with the assistance of Mrs Totterdell, that he was so incapacitated that he could barely move.'

Mr Foinette said Mr Totterdell was filmed walking across the road and crawling underneath cars while servicing his car.

The benefits were paid into Mrs Totterdell's bank account after she claimed he was '70% disabled in the lower back' with injuries to both shoulders.

April Totterdell told the jury: 'He just wanted a Blue Badge!'

Mr Foinette said he began competing in runs in September 2009 while being described in various documents 'as a frail old man who could hardly get out of an armchair to move from one side of the room to the other without using a zimmer frame and sticks'.

Source with pictures

A Kates Hill man who fiddled over £15,000 in benefits after failing to notify the authorities he owned a second home has been spared jail after paying back every penny.

Recorder Abigail Nixon told 52-year-old Mohammed Hussain people who illegally took money from the public purse normally spent time behind bars.

But she said Hussain - a man of previous good character - had expressed remorse for his actions and he had repaid the money he pocketed in full.

Hussain admitted two charges of benefit fraud and he was given a 36 week jail term, suspended for a year.

He must also carry out 100 hours unpaid work.

"I am not going to send you to prison but you should be aware this is a serious offence," the recorder told Hussain at Wolverhampton Crown Court.

She said it was to his credit he had admitted his actions from the start, was genuinely sorry and knew he had brought shame on his family.

Laura Culley, prosecuting, said Hussain applied for benefits without revealing he also owned a £70,000 home in Watsons Green Road, Dudley, which he was renting out for £125 a week.

The recorder told him it was clear he also played a major role in the care of his children and they would suffer if he was sent to jail.

Source

Benefit thieves do it for the money. They should have to pay back twice what they stole. They should not be eligible for any benefits until they have, and they should have to do some unpaid work every week until the debt to society is cleared.

That would be a deterrent.

A confiscation order should be made immediately.

Hit them in the pocket!

A mum-of-four who stole nearly £50,000 of tax credits while working for HMRC was spared jail – because of her children.

Nicola Shaw, 37, was an administrative officer in the government department’s “claimant compliance team” benefits section.

Her job involved claim investigations and sending out forms so claimants could notify the taxman if their circumstances changed.

But for six years Shaw pretended to be a single mum after her ex-partner moved back into their Wirral home and they married.

Judge Andrew Menary, QC, today said: “The claim document makes crystal clear that you were obliged to report that fact. The public, reading of this case, would be horrified to discover that somebody occupying that position would have behaved in the way you did. It means you knew full well what your responsibilities were.”

Liverpool Crown Court heard Shaw started a relationship with her ex-partner Richard Hamblett in 1997 and joined HMRC in 1999.

David Watson, prosecuting, said the couple bought a house in West Kirby in 2003 and had their first child in 2004.

They made a legitimate joint tax credit claim in July 2004, before phoning HMRC in November to say Mr Hamblett had moved out.

Shaw made a second, initially legitimate claim on December 1, 2004 – stating she was a single mum – which ran until April 6, 2015.

She was required to inform HMRC of any change in circumstances within 30 days and to return an annual declaration form.

The benefit cheat falsely completed these annual forms and failed to respond to 39 separate “award notice” checklist letters.

Mr Watson said: “She clearly reunited with Mr Hamblett and they in fact married on March 4, 2006. On September 30, 2007 they had a second child and on October 30, 2010, a third.”

Prosecutors accepted the couple split up in January 2012, sold their house in August that year and divorced in 2013.

The single claim ended when Shaw married her second husband, Kevin Shaw, who attended court to support his wife.

Mr Watson said the overpayment of £48,778.94 would be recovered by HMRC’s internal debt management unit.

Shaw told police her relationship with Mr Hamblett was “characterised by domestic violence” and she often stayed at her mum’s home. She claimed they split up three days into their honeymoon and the two additional children were “forced upon her”.

The mum, who has no previous convictions, admitted fraud on the first day of a trial on February 12.

However, in a pre-sentence report, she claimed she thought HMRC would have been aware of her position because her name changed.

Shaw cried in the dock when Judge Menary said she was “not a good role model for her children”.

He criticised her “continued pretence that she had no idea there was a great responsibility on her to report these things”.

Anna Duke, defending, argued it was “a miscommunication rather than a pretence” and said “frightened” Shaw had “buried her head in the sand”.

She said her client was “terrified” of being jailed, which would have an “extreme knock-on effect” on her family. Ms Duke said her parents were not in good health and if she was jailed, her husband might have to reduce his working hours.

Judge Menary said he “utterly rejected” the excuses given by Shaw, who “sought to lie her way out of it”.

But he said: “If I send you to prison today, a sentence which in many ways you richly deserve and the public would expect, there will be significant consequences for your children. It’s the immediate and potentially long term consequences for the children of losing their mother that drives me to the conclusion that it would not be appropriate to send you to prison.”

Judge Menary handed Shaw seven months in jail, suspended for two years, plus 150 hours of unpaid work and a 15-day rehabilitation activity requirement.

Source

A cousin of the Duchess of Cornwall who committed “significant and sophisticated” benefit frauds was jailed after a sheriff rejected suggestions that mental illness was to blame.

Dru Edmonstone, whose great-grandmother was Alice Keppel, Edward VII’s mistress, defrauded the state, Stirling council and the borough of Kensington and Chelsea out of thousands of pounds for more than three years.

He initially denied the charges and when presented with evidence began to display “bizarre, inexplicable, extreme and at times concerning behaviour”, his lawyer, John Mulholland, said. However, Mr Mulholland said that having obtained a psychiatric report, he was satisfied that no medical condition contributed towards his client’s fraud.

Edmonstone, 46, lived at Duntreath Castle, Blanefield, Stirlingshire, an estate gifted to the family by Robert III in 1435. He fraudulently used the names of his sister, his ex-wife, a former housekeeper and an employee of his father, to submit bogus claims for income support, tax credits, carers’ allowance and disability living allowance.

The former financier also fraudulently claimed thousands in housing benefit, some for a mews cottage in Kensington. Between January 2014 and April 2017 he pocketed £60,000 and channelled the money into spread- betting. Jailing him for 21 months, Sheriff Wyllie Robertson said a report by a psychiatrist revealed “a long history of deception and fraud” including altering GPs’ prescriptions. He added: “The psychiatrist goes on to observe, ‘it appears that his family has been colluding in trying to attract a diagnosis of mental illness as a way of excusing the patient’.”

Edmonstone was appearing for sentencing after pleading guilty in January.

Kyrsten Buist, for the prosecution, said that Elyssa Edmonstone, his sister, had been living abroad and inquired about making additional national insurance payments. She found that the Department for Work and Pensions had her brother’s address listed for her. Ms Buist said: “She confronted him in the presence of their mother and he ultimately admitted he had made the claims using his sister’s name and her NI number.”

Investigators found he had made telephone calls to the department pretending to be Elyssa. In another scam, he claimed tax credit and disability living allowance by pretending that he was looking after a 12-year-old child with autism, ADHD and depression.

Easy, then

In January 2014 HMRC received a telephone call from a woman who said she was Marie-Laurence Edmonstone (Edmonstone’s ex-wife). The woman answered security questions before handing the phone to Edmonstone. Ms Buist said: “The female caller [had] a Scottish accent, while his wife is French.”

Source with picture

A young mum scammed thousands of pounds in benefits in under a year - because the money was 'handy.'

Vicky Twizell, 23, admitted brazenly claiming £3,300 between March and October 2016, continuing to claim jobseekers' allowance and housing benefit even though her partner was working.

Despite now having a job at a Morrisons warehouse, Twizell is yet to pay back any of the money she owes.

A report by the probation service slammed her actions, stating: "She stole from everybody's pockets. She knows that she did wrong and she hoped she would get away with it for some time."

Prosecutor Alan Davies said: "The defendant made a claim on the basis she was unemployed and had no other income. She didn't declare her partner had started working. She admitted she should have declared it and money was something that came in handy."

Twizell was given an 18 month conditional discharge and ordered to pay back £85 costs and £20 charges.

Source with pictures

Man wrongly claimed £14k in benefits for over 5 years

Confiscation order for benefit fraudster

43 benefits cheats prosecuted in Plymouth in the last year

Duchess of Cornwall’s cousin facing prison for benefit fraud

Benefit fraud father hid £30k savings

Here's one way benefit fraud is understated - and why

Man admits benefit fraud

Disability benefit fraud

Benefit cheat had £40k savings

Benefit cheat ordered to pay back £16,660

Jail for £48k disability benefit fraud

Light sentence for social housing fraud

Ex-British Steel worker hid £75k pension sum to claim £17k benefits

£48k benefits cheat told to sell house

Fraudster gets four and a half years jail

Marathon runner's wife who helped him swindle £38k in disability benefit faces jail

Light sentence for assets benefit fraudster

HMRC worker fiddled her tax credits

Camilla's cousin was benefit thief

Conditional discharge for deliberate benefit fraud