Benefit Fraud – Helping you avoid prosecution

Below is a letter we received from a client – We can avoid this happening to you!!!

Dear Rodney,

I am reading news every day of people going to jail for benefit fraud. I am really concerned.

Just today, this is what I read (see below).

I know that we cannot do anything about anything now and that the strategy remains the same, but I am seriously concerned.

Anyway, I hope to hear some good news before 1st October,

Kind Regards,

Jail for Hunston benefit fraud man who ‘did not know wife had a job’

Published Date: 22 September 2009

A man from Hunston has been sent to prison after he lied by saying he did not know his wife had a job for 14 years when receiving £30,000 in benefits.

Jeffrey Macaulay, 59, claimed he did not realise his wife Peggy, 67, had been working for 14 years while he was in receipt of benefits, while she said she signed the benefit forms without knowing what they were for.

Mrs Macaulay was ordered to carry out 100 hours’ unpaid community work, and was given a 42-week suspended sentence for her part in the scam while her husband was sent to prison for 14 months.

At Chichester Crown Court on Friday judge William Wood said: “This is a case in which substantial sums have been, in effect, stolen from society by two people, one of whom was working, and the other of whom was claiming benefit.

“You are both guilty as the jury have convicted you, there is a substantial difference in culpability.

“Jeffrey Macaulay, in your case there is no alternative but to impose an immediate custodial sentence. I understand that you suffer from agoraphobia, it will therefore be worse in your case.

“Mrs Macaulay, I regard your case as really rather different than that of Mr Macaulay. You went along with what he was doing.”

From 1992 to 2006, the couple, of Orchard Side, claimed housing and council tax benefit, despite Mrs Macaulay starting work as a home care assistant for West Sussex County Council in 1993, eventually retiring in 2007.

In total they claimed £28,771 on housing and council tax benefit, while Mr Macaulay claimed £1,215 in jobseekers allowance.

Mrs Macaulay said she never hid the fact she worked for the council, and she was sure her husband, who thought she was out visiting friends and relatives every day, would have seen her work uniforms.

The couple both lived at the same address, but had different bedrooms and led separate lives, after drifting apart when Mrs Macaulay became ill.

Mr Macaulay, a former self-employed electronic product design engineer, was found guilty of two counts of fraud, while his wife was found guilty of three counts of dishonest false representation at the trial at Chichester Crown Court in August.

The false claims were found in 2007 after a computer scan matched the Macaulays’ claim record with Mrs Macaulay’s employment at West Sussex County Council.

District councillor Melva Bateman, who has responsibility for housing, said: “Benefit fraud is an extremely serious crime. The benefits system is designed to offer support to those most in need, not those who want to abuse it.

“If you apply for benefit, you must declare all of your household income. It’s as simple as that.

“We will not tolerate benefit fraud. We hope that the case of Mr and Mrs Macaulay sends out a clear message to discourage future applicants from withholding details of how much money is coming into their home.”

* To report a suspected case of benefit fraud contact the council’s investigation team on its confidential 24-hour fraud hotline number 01243 534590.

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