Benefit fraudster avoids jail for renting council house while living by seaside (From Croydon Guardian)

Benefit fraudster avoids jail for renting council house while living by seaside

10:00am Thursday 2nd September 2010 in

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A woman who claimed she was a living as a single mum despite being shacked up in a seaside love nest has avoided jail for conning Croydon Council out of more than £50,000 in benefits.

Anna Hughes, 49, took the cash while sub-letting her Upper Norwood council flat to her eldest daughter, while she settled in sunny St Leonards-on-Sea with her partner and youngest daughter for more than five years.

She cheated taxpayers out of more than £20,000 in housing benefit, £4,500 in council tax and almost £30,000 in income support before being dobbed in by an anonymous tipster.

When interviewed by council officers Hughes claimed she was travelling back and forth from Hastings to Streatham to look after her sick mother, and planned to make a permanent move as it would be better for her daughter to grow up by the seaside.

But she sought legal advice when officers confronted her with evidence her daughter had already been enrolled in a Hastings school for five years, and the council brought charges against her.

Hughes pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to two offences under the Social Security Administration Act 1992.

She was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for two years, and ordered to do 180 hours of unpaid work within 12 months in Hastings.

Hughes was also ordered to pay £250 costs, and a hearing is due to be arranged later in the year to arrange for the money to be paid back.

Councillor Dudley Mead, the council’s cabinet member for finance and asset management, said: “When someone claims benefits they are not entitled to they cheat taxpayers of money that could go to someone or something that really needs it.

“Croydon Council will always seek to prosecute these cases.”