Crime DOES pay!
A BENEFITS cheat who pocketed almost £10,000 in fraudulent housing benefits has been ordered to pay only £250 in court costs – at a rate of £5 per week.
Claire Harper, 34, falsely claimed housing and council tax benefit for two-and-a-half years.
She failed to alert the authorities when she moved out of the two- bedroom flat in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, that she shared with her young son and moved in with a friend.
Instead she continued to claim council tax credits and income support as a single mother living alone in the old flat, claiming a total of £9,421.96.
Fraud officers from North Somerset Council visited the property earlier this year after a tip-off that she was no longer living there.
She pleaded guilty to benefit fraud at North Somerset Magistrates’ Court this week and was sentenced to 100 hours’ community work. Prosecutors asked that she be made to pay £600 costs for the case.
But she was ordered to repay only £250 in costs and because of her financial situation she will be allowed to pay it back over 50 weeks – just £5 a week or 71p per day.
Conservative MP Philip Davies said: “This is an outrage. You have to wonder what these magistrates were thinking about. Whoever said ‘crime does not pay’ must be turning in their grave.”
Sally Andrews, prosecuting, said: “Before signing the housing benefit declaration it clearly says before the signature box that you must agree to let the council know of any change in circumstances. In an interview Ms Harper confirmed that she failed to report this and her explanation was that she couldn’t afford to live without it. She said she was up to her eyeballs in debt.”
Harper, who works part-time at a nursing home, legitimately sought housing benefit when she moved into the flat in March 2006. She moved out in May the following year but continued to have the monthly benefits paid into her account.
A North Somerset Council spokesman said it would try to use its powers to recoup the £9,421 from Harper’s future benefits claims. Alternatively, it may seek civil action to recoup the cash.
The spokesman said: “We want benefits to go to those who are legitimate claimants and we will investigate fraud and take appropriate action.”
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/195773/-10k-benefits-cheat-ordered-t...
but I wish I was....
ex.expat tell me you are joking....
to file a complaint in the High Court for her suffering since her husband's suicide bombing. Thankfully she was denied today but it's just another sign of how our country is in the loo.
It's the senile judges... They need to wake up and start protecting the victim instead of the criminal.
to try and sort out when I get back! ;)
why they giving benefits?people tend to cheat because of that.poor thing to those tax payers.
fully agree - and they wonder why people are leaving in record numbers!
No wonder the country is going down the tubes..