Benefit Fraud Weekly Review – 20 May 2013
Confiscation Order Follows Benefit Conviction
At Belfast Crown Court in June 2010 a woman had a Confiscation Order issued against her to the value of £4,825. Financial Investigation Unit revisited the case based on information obtained in the initial investigation which showed that a further asset would become available on 9 November 2011. Last week Financial Investigation Unit were successful in obtaining a variation on the original Confiscation Order. The variation requires the defendant to pay an additional sum of £4,589.60 on or before 16 November 2013.
A 34 year old Dungannon man was sentenced to two months in prison last week at Dungannon Magistrate’s Court. He had failed to declare his Excess Capital whilst in receipt of benefits and incurred an overpayment of Income Support of £3,836.25 which must be repaid.
Suspended sentences were handed out at Dungannon Magistrate’s Court and Belfast Crown Court last week. Offences included failure to declare work whilst claiming benefit and failure to declare Excess Capital whilst claiming benefits. Overpayments in the two cases totalled over £25,000 which must be repaid.
A 23 year old Dungannon woman was sentenced to a six month Probation Order for failing to report work to the Department whilst claiming Income Support and Housing Benefit. She was also ordered to pay £34 court costs.
Four Conditional Discharge sentences were handed out last week. In one case a 23 year old Bangor man was found guilty of wrongful encashment of benefit. He declared he had not received original payments of benefit thus receiving duplicate payments. Investigations determined he had indeed cashed both original and duplicate payments.
Finally 240 hours Community Service were handed out last week in two separate cases.
This brings the total number of convictions since 1 April 2013 to 66.
If you wish to report benefit fraud please refer to our Fraud pages. |
