Need help and advice about the Benefit Fraud Interview process and what happens next

Question: Hopefully you can help, I’m getting in touch about one of my clients. I work as a carer and I’m really worried for them. I’ll try and give you as much background into this as I have been able to find out from them, so hopefully you’ll know what I need to do if anything.

She received a letter from the Job Centre plus which said she would need to attend an interview about her Income support and Housing Tax Benefits. From memory, the letter also stated that they believed there were good grounds for suspecting she’d committed an offence in relation to her benefit claims.

It also said that she would be interviewed under caution. As her carer, she has asked me to attend the interview with her for moral support. She tells me she has no idea what this is all about and says she’s done nothing wrong. She lives in quite a rough area of the city and says it could well be malicious people causing trouble for her.

I’m not sure what help I’m going to be, even if I am allowed to sit in this interview with her. I’ve got no knowledge about these things and wanted to contact some professionals in regard to this matter. She’s a lovely lady and very friendly, not the type of person I would ever consider to have been fiddling the system, at least not on purpose anyway. Many years ago before her illness, she tells me she was hard working and went many years without going off sick. So she doesn’t strike me as somebody who takes the easy way out of anything.

I just hope she is innocent, do they often make mistakes? Does the letter and interview mean they have evidence against her and know she’s been falsely claiming benefit overpayments? If they do find her guilty, does this mean she will he be charged with benefit fraud and sent to prison? I’m unsure of the process and I’d like to know as I’m supporting her as much as possible but need to know what i am walking into as have no experience in this field. Ideally, I’d like to help her get some proper legal assistance as she’s currently relying on me to help her through this and I know I’m going to be no help at all when the interview comes around.

Answer: If they do not allow a lawyer carer to sit in, then game, set and match no interview. Having said that, there is no obligation on your clients to attend at all. Presumably if she needs a carer she has some difficulties and you help her, but never more so than in her case the correct approach is to not attend but to send in a written statement. They cannot make you attend, and they cannot make you say anything if she does.

Sending in a written statement with perhaps character references and medical evidence is much better route, and one that might be right for your client.

Consult Hylton-Potts, the experts who offer fixed fees, and give excellent value.

We operate a free and confidential 24 hour email service. Just click on [email protected] or,  during office hours, there is a free and confidential legal helpline 020 7381 8111.

Good luck whatever you and she decide.