Benefits cheat given 178 YEARS to pay back swindled £100,000

A BENEFITS cheat has been given 178 YEARS to pay back the money she swindled from taxpayers.

Benefits, cheat, Nicola Daly, jailed, bogus, fraud, council tax, housing benefit, income support, swindled, taxpayersNicola Daly jailed for 16 months for benefit fraud[INS News Agency]

Devious newly-wed Nicola Daly bogusly claimed £100,000 in council tax, housing benefit and income support payments for almost nine years.

Today she was handed a 16-month jail sentence for the fraud, which was only discovered when her elderly mother-in-law dropped her in it with a residential care application.

A judge heard that Daly claimed the cash after lying to her local council that she was raising her two children alone.

In fact the cheat had lived with her partner, who worked for John Lewis, for several years and continued to do so despite repeatedly claiming she had been estranged from him for 15 years.

The trickster was finally caught after her elderly mother-in-law applied for residential care and declared that she owned a house where her son Steven Randall and Daly both lived.

The 39-year-old was sentenced to 16 months in prison at Reading Crown Court after admitting five charges of fraud and making false statements. The court heard she is repaying the amount at a rate of £50 a month, which will take a staggering 178 years for the total to be recovered.

Alison Ginn, prosecuting, said: "Between June 2004 and March 2013, very nearly nine years, Daly claimed and received benefits in the form of income support, housing support and council tax benefits to which she was not entitled."

She said the total amount was £107,154.50.

The court heard that Daly, from Usk Road, Tilehurst, Berkshire had clearly stated on benefit claim forms to Reading Borough Council that she only lived with her two children, now aged five and 11 years.

Social securities support is not to pay people who feel hard up, it doesn't come from a limitless supply of cash

Judge Johanna Cutts

Mrs Ginn said: "Reading Borough Council requested more information and she said that she was not in contact with Steven Randall and he had not paid any maintenance for his children."

"She added in subsequent claims that she had not spoken the man she lived with for 15 years."

But when Mr Randall's mother Ivy completed an application seeking residential care it was revealed Daly was living with her partner. 

Daly eventually admitted to police she had lied about her situation because she "thought she could get away with it". 

Graham Bennett, mitigating, said Daly had some previous convictions but none for over a decade.

He said that at the time of the initial false claim, she and her partner had struggled with drug addictions and she had just given birth to their first child.

"She was in significant financial difficulties," said Mr Bennett.

"The income support gave rise to council tax and housing benefit and the same false declarations were made. Regrettably she did not correct matters and this continued throughout the years." 

He said the couple had married in April this year and Daly was working part-time to repay her debt at £50 pounds per month.

Judge Johannah Cutts said: "Social securities support is not to pay people who feel hard up, it doesn't come from a limitless supply of cash.

"Taxpayers money is used in a benevolent society to help those truly in need and you did not fall into that category." 

Three related charges, which Daly denied, were left to lay on file by the Crown Prosecution Service.

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