Year’s jail for £138k benefits cheat mum who lived in the sun

A BENEFITS cheat has been jailed for a year after claiming nearly £140,000 while living in a holiday resort in Tunisia.

Susan FlanaganLIVERPOOL ECHO

Susan Flanagan, who raked in hundreds of thousands of pounds she wasn't entitled to

Susan Flanagan, 56, moved her two children to North Africa to enjoy a sunshine lifestyle. But the mother continued to rake in the British state handouts for more than six years, claiming she was living in a terraced house on Merseyside.

Flanagan even wrote a blog, called A Brit Making A Life In Tunisia, boasting about her catering business there. A court heard how she enjoyed eating out at restaurants in the popular resort of Monastir.

All the while she was claiming income support, child benefit and disability living allowance after lying that she was still living in Prenton, Birkenhead.

Flanagan also claimed employment support allowance and child tax credits. She was arrested on her return to the UK in 2012, after a tip-off to the Department for Work and Pensions.

Flanagan at first claimed she had only spent eight weeks in Tunisia, renting a holiday apartment. She said her blog was “a figment of her imagination” and should not been taken seriously.

However, DWP investigators found that she had taken her children out of school in 2006. Stamps in her passport were translated from Arabic and investigators trawled through her bank account.

Flanagan has now admitted five offences of failing to notify a change of circumstances and failing to disclose information. She claimed £138,000 benefits she was not entitled to – but was ordered to pay back just £4,000.

Defending her at Liverpool Crown Court, Philip Astbury said Flanagan had not been living the “life of Riley” in North Africa. He said it was an “unusual” case and Flanagan would have been entitled to those benefits had she been living in Britain.

She turned up to court in a mobility scooter as she suffers from restricted movement. However, Recorder Paul Reid, QC, rejected a request to give her a suspended sentence.

He said that Flanagan had chosen to abuse the system to fund an “enjoyable life in Tunisia”.

The latest Government figures revealed that 7,296 British expats in 157 countries cheated the welfare system out of £82million in 2013.

Spain, Pakistan and Turkey were the countries that attracted the most fraudsters. Turkey and Spain had 1,500 suspected fraudsters.

The most common cases involved bogus claims for pension credit, followed by housing benefit.

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