Cheater conned £64k in benefits despite earning up to £45k
FRAUD investigators caught a benefit cheat who fiddled more than £64,800 to which he was not entitled, Grimsby Crown Court heard.
Byron Scott, 53, of Barcroft Street, Cleethorpes, admitted nine offences of making false statements to obtain benefit and four of retaining a wrongful bank credit, between September 2001 and the end of 2010.
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Robert Stevenson, prosecuting, said Scott had been claiming incapacity benefit for himself, a partner and a dependent child on the grounds he was unfit for work and had no other income.
But it was discovered that he had been working for several employers, including as a foreman, from 2001 and had been earning good money of up to £45,000 a year.
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He fiddled £31,628.16 in incapacity benefit, £14,198 in Income Support, £15,420.28 housing benefit and £3,624.83 council tax benefit – a total of £64,866.25.
During interview, he blamed "ignorance" for the frauds.
Craig Lowe, mitigating, said Scott had been repaying the money and offered to do so straight away.
He was truly sorry, accepted his actions were stupid, had not put forward any excuse and had said: "It's my fault. I'm guilty".
Recorder Paul Watson QC told Scott: "The sums involved in this case, in which you defrauded the state, are very substantial over a long period of time.
"I simply can't ignore the seriousness of your offending, repeated and persistent as it was."
Scott was jailed for eight months. After the hearing, John Carter, a Department for Work and Pensions fraud investigation manager, said: "No one should think they can get away with benefit theft.
"Our investigators track down those guilty of stealing money they are not entitled to, bringing them before the courts and making them face the consequences of their action.
"In addition to the sentence imposed by the court, the department always seeks to recover the money falsely obtained, to ensure that cheats do not benefit from their criminal activities. Anyone who suspects someone is fraudulently claiming benefits can call our national benefit fraud hotline on 0800 854440, open from 7am to 11pm, 7 days a week.
"Calls are treated in total confidence."
Welfare Reform Minister Lord Freud said: "Benefit thieves are costing the taxpayer over £1billion per year.
"This money is intended to help those most in need – not line the pockets of criminals.
"We will continue to tackle this problem at the front line but also at the root by reforming the benefits system to make it less open to abuse.
"Universal Credit will simplify and automate the benefits system to make it less open to abuse and ensure this money is going to those who need it the most."
Comments
by scooby02
Sunday, April 29 2012, 7:40PM
“GREEDY..”
by alfombramagic
Sunday, April 29 2012, 3:02PM
“The benefit system may benefit from adopting the honesty box principle. You know....similar to those eggs you can buy out in the country. You take the eggs, bags of potatoes or even the
peddler's home made marmalade or jam, then, on trust, you put in the relevant amount of coinage that you would ordinarily hand to the shop keeper.
This principle could be applied to the benefit system. He who was formerly the claimant, could decide honestly how much he needed to live on, and based on trust could help himself to the required amount. The savings in respect of benefit staff would far outweigh the losses due to rogue users of the system.
How about voting me in as councillor on Thursday?”
by Eileen_Dover
Sunday, April 29 2012, 2:33PM
“Why ask people to sign such agreements? Surely the state has enough information about us to allow them to discover "cheats" like this anyway. The bloke had "several employers" and earned "up to £45,000 a year". Wasn't he paying tax and NI? Couldn't each government department "share" such information, or would that be classed as infringing his "human rights".
It seems the human rights of individuals makes it possible to fiddle the system at will, and then protect them from any consequences. It also allows people to sneak into the UK on false passports, preach hatred and death to our population, and we don't have the right to kick them out, we have to give them a bigger council house and more benefits, but that's another story.
There is no proportionality in our law anymore. This guy was obviously working, why send him down at a massive cost to the taxpayer? He shouldn't have been given a custodial sentence, he should have been allowed to continue working, so he could afford to pay every penny back, plus a fine.”
by R_Turpin
Sunday, April 29 2012, 2:20PM
“Ha-ha-ha
Notice the disproportionate number of RED ratings given in around 3 minutes.
This means only one thing....p_rhana is about. Watch for his next post folks, or one or two disappearing posts.”
by ipaybills
Sunday, April 29 2012, 1:51PM
“Hedgewood,
Not a bad idea.
I notice you have distinguished between anyone DELIBERATELY claiming money to which they are not entitled and presumably those who have mistakenly claimed money.
Seeing as though you would penalise such people in these circumstances by having their benefits stopped FOREVER (effectively for lying), would you also suggest a level playing field and have all council employees made to sign a contract stating that if they ever lie to their customers that they will be banned from working as a civil servant FOREVER?”
by Hedgewood
Sunday, April 29 2012, 1:16PM
“Anyone claiming benefits should be made to sign a contract stating that if they deliberately claim money that they are not entitled to, they will have their benefits stopped, FOREVER.”
by CleeCabby
Sunday, April 29 2012, 12:08AM
“Under the current capitalist system the rich exploit the poor and some of the poor try to steal from everyone else. Surely there has got to be a better system than this”
by Eileen_Dover
Saturday, April 28 2012, 9:37PM
“Ironic”
by CleeCabby
Saturday, April 28 2012, 7:31PM
“Eileen Dover I can't work out if your being ironic or serious these wealthy people are not investing in industry or anything else in our economy. I wonder how much of Sir Phillip's stock is made in Britain and as for Lord Ashcroft from what I can gather all his investments have been in Central America and the Caribbean and after watching a documentary several weeks ago he has been pheonixing his compnies through his various banks to get out of paying his bills. These people are not this country's future they are parasites who are helping the ruling elite maintain their power so that they can keep using the loopholes that successive governments leave open for their nefarious activities. DON'T BELIEVE THE HEGEMONY!”
by Eileen_Dover
Saturday, April 28 2012, 6:15PM
“Unfortunately "CleeCabby" what Sir Phillip Green, Lord Ashcroft, Barbara Hughes et al are up to is completely legal. You're not suggesting we try to change the tax laws to prevent this sort of thing happening are you? Don't you understand they pay less tax so they've got more money to invest in making Britain great once again. You make it sound like they just do it so they end up with more money for themselves. It's how the great capitalist system works. Even our fantastic Chancellor was gobsmacked to find out rich people organise their tax affairs in such a way, so they end up paying less tax.
http://tinyurl.com/d6eftkp
He's either thick as two short planks, or a liar, make your own mind up.
That doesn't excuse our own benefits cheats though.”