Suspended prison term for £14.5k claim cheat - The Worcester Observer

Suspended prison term for £14.5k claim cheat

Worcester Editorial 17th Dec, 2014 Updated: 19th Oct, 2016   0

A MOTHER-of-six who fraudulently claimed almost £15,000 in overpayments has avoided jail by ‘a whisker’ because of concerns about the welfare of her children.

District Judge Nigel Cadbury deemed Elaine Wilkes, of Swallowfields in Worcester, had a duty to look after her children despite the fact she falsely received a total of £14,519 in Income Support, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit.

The 32-year-old, who is currently pregnant with her seventh child, failed to declare to both the Department for Work and Pensions and Worcester City Council that she had married Darren Jacob and that they were both living together.

Wilkes appeared at Worcester Magistrates Court last Friday (December 12) for sentencing after she had previously pleaded guilty to two counts of failing to notify a change in her circumstances affecting her entitlement to benefits between September 17, 2011 and November 9, 2011.




She also pleaded guilty to four charges of dishonestly making a false statement to obtain a benefit between 2011 and 2013.

The court heard Wilkes didn’t tell the Department for Work and Pensions or the city council when she got married in 2011 and continued to use her maiden name.


Even when the pair moved in together Wilkes claimed her new husband was living at a separate address in Worcester, the court was also told.

Weeping at the back of court Wilkes was given a six-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, handed a 12-month community order with supervision and told to complete eight sessions of the general offender work book.

District Judge Cadbury said: “Your husband earns £1,600 a month, you get child tax credit of over £300 a week, you get £352 a month in child benefit and also get £260 a month in children maintenance.

“Yet you still decided to try and obtain more benefits.

“I shouldn’t be the one who makes comments about the benefit system in this country but it does seem quite extraordinary.

“It is a serious matter and particularly serious when the benefit system is being cut, all public services are being cut so people now are receiving less and are likely to get even less if people like you abuse what it is already a very limited resource.

“The main and only reason you have avoided custody is because you are the mother of a number of children and you have got another one on the way.

“You must realise you have come within a whisker of custody.”

Wilkes was also slapped with an eight-week curfew, from 9pm to 7am, and told to pay court costs of £85 and an £80 victim surcharge.

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