Catching up with benefit fraud (not)

Explaining why Gordon Brown is losing the votes of the "GMTV family", The Telegraph quotes Sarah Randall from Harlow:

Mrs Randall reckons the whole system is weighted against people who try to stand on their own feet. "We both work, and yet the Government doesn't seem to be doing anything about people who don't. We're doing everything we should do. We're in a stable relationship, we've got our own home, we're looking after our children, and they [the Government] don't do an awful lot to make our lives any easier."

What incenses her is to see others living idly at the taxpayers' expense. "I have an issue with people over 16 who live at home, don't work, and are given dole money," she said. "A lot of that money is spent on drink, drugs and cigarettes".

Today we have Mohamed Shaukat Ali from Portishead, who received an overpayment of housing benefit of £6,073.98 and an overpayment of council tax benefit of £712.93.

The offender started a claim for housing benefit and council tax benefit in November 2004 for a property in Portishead.

He renewed his claim by completing a review form in April 2007.

On investigating the claim, it was found that he had not declared that he was actually the leaseholder for the Spicy Aroma restaurant in High Street, Portishead and had been since September 2006.

The investigation also established that he had bought a house in Portishead.

He got away with it for two and a half years. He just went on claiming too long.

A woman from Wootton Bassett was overpaid £7,240.25 of housing benefit and £1,542.10 of council tax benefit - between February 2001 and December 2006, nearly 5 years. She had failed to declare savings of more than £12,000 and was planning a Caribbean holiday.

And a Cardiff couple with four small children cheated the benefits system out of more than £36,000 in a fraud which went on for years.

Gemma Kerr, 24, had just one five-month-old baby when she put in a claim for income support saying she was separated from her husband and unable to work because there was no one to look after her child.

By the time the law caught up with her and Anthony Kerr, 32, they had become parents to three more children and are now expecting their fifth.

But Mr Kerr was working as a taxi driver.

Kerr’s applications for taxi driver licences exposed the cheating when the local authority realised his address at Elizabeth Avenue, Barry, was the same one his wife used for her benefits.

Mr Crowther said: “They cross-referenced the details with credit agencies and found he had claimed to have been living at that address with his wife for the past four years.

A man from Market Rasen was overpaid Council Tax Benefit of £774.70 and Income Support of £3034.70 after failing to declare that his wife had inherited £48,000! The council spotted this one quite quickly - the overpayments covered a 10 month period.

The News of the World has a report claiming that "weedy, pasty-faced and workshy, swaggering Keith MacDonald is the most disgusting little breeder in Britain", but he'll probably be proud of the publicity. He's fathered seven children by seven girls. "And seedy MacDonald — who blows his benefit money on beer and fruit machines — has no intention of ever supporting his growing brood".

"I don't pay anything for any of my kids. I don't see them, so why should I?" he sneered. "They get benefits. They get looked after".

The paper suggests that the offspring will cost us £1m in benefits.

Age is no bar. MacDonald is 22, but Graham Waterman from Portsmouth is 58. Between 1997 and 2006 , he claimed £55,813 in income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit that he was not entitled to by failing to tell the authorities that his wife Linda, was working as a carer. He also didn't mention that he was working for two months at the beginning of 2006. Comment from the Taxpayers' Alliance focuses on the fact that he would be 110 by the time the money was repaid. But the fraud went on for nine years.

The authorities hope that reports like these will deter. But will they? If you're hard up, they might increase the temptation.

The Edinburgh Evening News reports that the estimated annual cost of benefit fraud in the UK is "£900 million, or £36 from each family". The council is producing a newsletter.

Doubtless Mrs Randall would be impressed.

P.S. Feeling over-taxed? Trevor Kavanagh has a cracking piece.