Benefit Fraud Enquiries
Because of the credit crunch and recession, the Government has tripled its resources into Benefit Fraud and Tax Credit Fraud enquiries.
It is not when if they catch you but when.
Consult the experts. For more information or a free legal opinion telephone 020-7381-8111 (24 hour service) or email law@rhplaw.co.uk
We are on your side and will help you fight your case related to benefit fraud
It is not if they catch you but when.
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We are here not to judge you, but to help you.
We have a high success rate in negotiating and successfully defending these claims, or otherwise obtaining the best possible outcome, i.e. the re-payment of the benefits claimed, with payment terms, without a criminal prosecution or even a caution.
We never allow our clients to be interviewed.
We can prepare a statement with you by phone and email, to avoid an arrest orwe stressful tape-recorded interview by the Fraud Enquiry Office or police.
As far as we know our service is unique.
We negotiate on your behalf with a high success rate in achieving a satisfactory outcome with the Job Centre Benefit Fraud Enquiry Office, or DWP.
People break the law for all sorts of reasons. For some, the pressures of family life can push them into situations from which they find it hard to escape from.
We understand this and how sometimes people can get themselves into unfortunate situations. The work we do is more than just a job for us and we work tirelessly to always get the best outcome for our client.
Sentencing for Benefit Fraud and pension credit fraud
Prosecutions take place for fraud for as little as £2,000 and on conviction a Community Service order, or fine, is usually imposed a first offence.
Between £5,000 and £20,000, there is usually an immediate custodial sentence of three months, for the first offence.
For cases involving benefit overpayment of over £20,000, a custodial sentence of around 9-12 months will normally be imposed.
Our job is to change that.
Large-scale benefit fraud can result in sentences of over 30 months. A jail sentence can contain a deterrent element and make ‘examples’ of people.
We mitigate penalties for our clients by off-setting the amount of benefits they have legitimately received against the amount of overpayment claimed. We work out the correct levels of claims and investigate our client’s circumstances. This can reduce the amount of overpayment by up to 80%.
Mitigation can reduce any sentence and an early guilty plea will always do this. In cases of benefit fraud, extra factors that are taken into account are the amount of time over which the fraud occurred and the total amount. Character evidence and voluntary repayments will also be taken into account. A helpful report from a sympathetic doctor can help.
Download the Benefit fraud sentencing tariff as a pdf.
Hylton-Potts – We can help – We are on your side
At Hylton-Potts we can further reduce a sentence by making representations as to the circumstances of the offence and how the fraud began, what the money was spent on and particular special matters relevant such as family breakdown, illness or disability. If a client has committed a benefit fraud in order to feed their young family, then we can ensure this is taken into account in sentencing and given full consideration by the court.
Pressure from others such as bullying by partners, forced marriages, not understanding the regulations, poor English, medical problems and full cooperation, are all factors we can help you with, to get the best possible result. We have accountants and sympathetic doctors who will help.
DSS compliance office
We can help with enquiries from the DSS compliance office, and dod not allow our clients to be interviewed. We can also help if you have a problem over foster care.
Tax Credits and pension credits
If you are in trouble for having wrongfully claimed tax credits or pension credits, we can help.
We have an excellent track record in avoiding prosecutions. We do not allow our clients to undergo a stressful interview under caution. We deal with the compliance office for you.
We can help you even if the prosecution process has started.
We have great success in getting the DWP, to look at cases again, and exchange a civil penalty, for a criminal prosecution, even if one has begun and a summons has been served.
At Hylton-Potts we can further reduce a sentence by making representations as to the circumstances of the offence and how the fraud began, what the money was spent on and particular special matters relevant such as family breakdown, illness or disability. If a client has committed a benefit fraud in order to feed their young family, then we can ensure this is taken into account in sentencing and given full consideration by the court.
Pressure from others such as bullying by partners, forced marriages, not understanding the regulations, poor English, medical problems and full cooperation, are all factors we can help you with, to get the best possible result. We have accountants and sympathetic doctors who will help.
We also specialise in dealing with the National Health Service (NHS) fraud investigation.
Usually the problem arises when a care worker has claimed sick benefit when well, misrepresented qualifications or maybe used a false name.
We have an outstanding track record in avoiding criminal prosecutions.
We can help if you fear being struck of the NHS list, or fear a prosecution and possible prison sentence.
More Information on Benefit Fraud Law
We are better and cheaper than solicitors. For more information or a free legal opinion telephone 020-7381-8111 (24 hour service) or email law@rhplaw.co.uk.
Student loan and grant problems
If you have got into a mess, and have claimed benefit when perhaps you should not, contact us – the specialists.
Our job is to make the threat of a criminal record or a prison sentence go away, and we are very good at it.
We offer a fast and efficient service, and are committed to a high level of client satisfaction.
The Fraud Investigators know us all over the country and love our approach. We make their life easy, and keep investigation costs down.
Unlike experienced Legal Aid solicitors, we do not ask for copy documents for the sake of it, or treat them like idiots, which they are certainly not.
Invariably the response is “Thank Heavens you are involved. How can we sort this out ?”.
Hylton Potts – The reliable lawyer for Benefit Fraud Advice
Is Tax evasion is as bad as benefit fraud?
Is there a distinction between withholding money by deception and obtaining money by deception? Leona Helmsley, the billionaire US hotel proprietor, once infamously said that “only little people pay taxes”. If she had ever lived in the UK, she might have added: “Only little people go to jail for tax fraud.”
Cheat the Government out of £20,000 in benefits and there is a very good chance that you will be put behind bars. Cheat the Government out of double that amount through tax evasion and there is a very good chance you will not.
In May 2010 Susanne Rees, of Bridgend in Wales, was sentenced to 60 days in prison after pleading guilty to defrauding her local council of £19,000 in housing and council tax benefit. Only three months earlier Michael Frost, a businessman from Cheltenham, avoided jail and was given only 60 hours of community service after pleading guilty to evading £65,000 of income tax through self-assessment fraud.
Probably the only reason Mr Frost escaped going to jail — despite cheating the Government out of more than three times as much as Ms Rees — was because he wore a smart suit and employed an even smarter lawyer.
A quick trawl through court records shows that defendants convicted of benefits fraud of more than £20,000 are often sent to prison, and sometimes a lot less.
Yet less than one in every 1,000 people subject to HM Revenue & Customs investigation for tax evasion is prosecuted to the degree that a criminal sentence even becomes a possibility. Far fewer end up in prison.
Patrick Malkinson, chairman of Boston United Football Club, avoided jail despite defrauding the taxman of almost £400,000. Had Mr Malkinson’s cleaner fraudulently claimed even a tenth as much in housing benefit, you can be sure that she would have ended up in prison.
Of course, the different sentences handed out for morally (or at least financially) equivalent crimes could, in part, be down to the record of the offenders. Some of the many benefit fraudsters put behind bars may have previous convictions, for example. But that cannot be the entire explanation.
It is common for wealthy businessmen caught up in tax investigations to do deals with HM Revenue & Customs. The taxman rarely starts a criminal prosecution when someone is prepared to co-operate.
For more information or free legal advice telephone 020-7381-8111 (24 hour service) or email law@rhplaw.co.uk
Legal Aid
We specialise in helping people who cannot get Legal Aid, or where none is available.
Legal aid solicitors are usually free. They are often dedicated and compassionate, but quite clueless and inexperienced, and just sit there.
Whether you come to us or not, what you probably need somebody who is a specialist, and very streetwise.
It is like the difference between a Harley Street specialist and the local crowded GP’s surgery. The prisons are full of people on legal aid.
Also increasingly Legal Aid has been withdrawn from key areas, and our fixed fee, no nonsense, no bullshit approach may appeal to you.
We are better and cheaper than Solicitors.
If you think we might be the Lawyers for you please contact us – For more information or a free legal opinion telephone 020-7381-8111 (24 hour service) or email law@rhplaw.co.uk.
If you wish to report benefit fraud anonymously we can do so for a fixed fee of £195 including VAT.
Benefits: A bounty to trap cheats
Rock star faces jail for fraud – click here for full article
If you are worried that you have broken the rules, and want to stop a criminal prosecution or record consult the experts.
For more information or a free legal opinion telephone 020-7381-8111 (24 hour service) or email law@rhplaw.co.uk.
Benefit fraud paid for children’s private education
A traveller who financed his children’s private education using £31,000 obtained in a benefits fraud was jailed for 18 months yesterday.
Matthew Newland, 41, from Lyne, near Chertsey, Surrey, drove a BMW car and paid £10,000 a year for his daughter to attend a prep school and £7,000 a year to educate his two sons, a jury at Guildford Crown Court was told. Newland claimed incapacity benefit, disability allowance, housing benefit, council tax benefit and income support, despite earning nearly £90,000 a year as a roofer while living in a static caravan owned by his mother-in-law.
Newland admitted five charges of fraud and was jailed for 12 months for each one, to be served concurrently, and six months for failing to surrender to bail, to be served consecutively. His estranged wife, Wendy, 40, had been earlier jailed for eight months for benefit fraud totalling £50,000.
For more information or a free legal opinion telephone 020-7381-8111 (24 hour service) or email law@rhplaw.co.uk.
Market hairdresser jailed for £360,000 housing benefit scam
A Shepherd’s Bush hairdresser who made fraudulent housing benefit claims over 19 years has been jailed for a year and will have to pay back £360,000.
Matilda Kwapong claimed she had been evicted from the home she bought in Ealing in 1988, and in 1990 was given a two-bedroom council flat which she then rented out to help repay her mortgage.
She also claimed housing benefit and council tax discounts, despite running a successful hairdressing salon in the railway arches at Shepherd’s Bush Market.
Kwapong was only discovered when one of her tenants also tried to claim housing benefit last year, and was jailed after admitting deception and false accounting in July.
A financial investigation was then launched by police and council officers in Ealing to calculate how much she prospered from the scam, and what assets must be confiscated. They found she had made £231,000 through the fraudulent use and sub-letting of the council flat and another £122,000 through the increased market value of her home.
Kwapong was sentenced to 12 months in prison at Isleworth Crown Court on Friday (15), and was ordered to pay £76,697 compensation to Ealing Council, a compensation order of £290,451 and council legal costs of £6,132. If she fails to pay within one year she will be jailed for another three years and will still owe the debt.
PS Geoff Donoghue, of the financial investigation unit at Ealing Police, said: “We will work in partnership with the council and do our best to protect public funds by stripping the assets of anyone convicted of housing and benefit fraud to ensure that their crime does not pay.”
For more information or a free legal opinion telephone 020-7381-8111 (24 hour service) or email law@rhplaw.co.uk.
DWP cannot recover all benefit overpayments
The Department for Work and Pensions cannot recover welfare benefit payments through the courts where the claimant is not at fault, the Supreme Court has ruled.
Between March 2006 and February 2007 the DWP wrote to over 65,000 claimants telling them it could sue them, if they did not return overpayments made as a result of administrative errors.
The benefits involved included income support, incapacity benefit, disability living allowance, jobseekers’ allowance and child benefit.
In The Child Poverty Action Group v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions [2010] UKSC 54, the judges said it was common ground that the secretary of state was entitled to recover overpayments resulting from misrepresentation or non-disclosure (what you and I would call benefit fraud).
But what about through no fault of the citizen benefit was overpaid because of the mistake at DWP? From now the citizen can keep the money.
The Judge said it was “entirely rational” for Parliament to decide that only those whose behaviour brought about the overpayments should be liable to reimburse them.
If you want expert confidential advice consult the experts. For more information or a free legal opinion telephone 020-7381-8111 (24 hour service) or email law@rhplaw.co.uk.
Housing cheat forced to hand back her keys
Fraudster claimed more than £20k
Benefit cheat wife follows her husband in being sentenced
Click here to read the articles
Do not let this happen to you. We can help.
We help people in Scotland with benefit fraud and tax credit problems.
Benefits cheat UK: Court sees a staggering 23 cases of welfare fraud in just ONE DAY
- click here to read the full article
For more information or a free legal opinion telephone 020-7381-8111 (24 hour service) or email law@rhplaw.co.uk.
Necessity of arrest
In Richardson v The Chief Constable of West Midlands Police, the claimant sought damages for false imprisonment. He claimed that his arrest was unlawful on the grounds that the arresting officer had or no reasonable, grounds for considering that it was ‘necessary’.
The claimant, a teacher, faced an allegation of assault by a pupil. He had agreed to attend police station A by appointment with his solicitor. The solicitor made representations to the effect that arrest was not necessary on the basis that the claimant was content to be interviewed on a voluntary basis.
Nevertheless, he was duly arrested and according to the custody record, the arresting officer was of the view that the arrest was necessary for the “prompt and effective investigation of the offence”. The custody sergeant noted on the record that the arrest was necessary on the basis that the claimant would have to be arrested, should he attempt to leave during the course of the voluntary interview.
The claimant was released on bail and, in due course, informed that the police had decided to take no further action. He then challenged the lawfulness of the arrest by means of judicial review.
It was held that the arrest was unlawful as the defendant had failed to establish that the ‘necessity’ requirement had been satisfied. There was no evidence as to whether, and if so why, the arresting officer considered it necessary to arrest the claimant. There was no evidence that an evaluation was made of the need to arrest, taking into account all relevant circumstances including his voluntary attendance at two police stations and the absence of any evidence to suggest he was likely to leave before the end of the interview.
The court found that the arresting officer’s belief that arrest was necessary would have been unreasonable.
Defence solicitors should take a copy of this decision with them when attending the police station if it is anticipated that representations as to the necessity to arrest may be appropriate.
A practice has developed at certain police stations of declaring an arrest to be necessary for a prompt and effective investigation, supporting this with a perfunctory reference to the seriousness of the matter or the hypothetical risk of the volunteer leaving mid-interview.
However, this case demonstrates that courts will expect contemporaneous evidence that the necessity test was given proper consideration by the arresting officer and that there was a proper evaluation of all the relevant circumstances.
It is now clear that an unsubstantiated assertion that the volunteer may choose to leave mid-interview, in the absence of any evidence in support of this contention, is unlikely to satisfy the necessity requirement.
Accordingly, it is crucial that advisers ensure that all relevant circumstances are brought to the attention of the arresting officer and that any representations are fully endorsed on the custody record.
Experts in Benefit fraud tariff, Benefit fraud sentencing guidelines
If you have a problem with the police, or could be arrested, consult the experts – For more information or free legal advice telephone 020-7381-8111 (24 hour service) or email law@rhplaw.co.uk
We have a good knowledge of welfare benefits and the entitlement criteria that go with them.
We have extensive experience of tribunals and have attended appeal hearings personally. We are particularly familiar with what appeal chairs are looking for to reverse authority decisions.
‘Disabled’ Benefits cheat filmed fighting police – click to download
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Benefits cheat with £1/2m in property – click to read
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Jail for benefit cheat who bought a house – click to read
‘We cannot stand for it’: Mr Cameron described the massive amount of money lost to fraud as ‘absolutely outrageous’ He pledged: ‘We need to do more to stop fraud. This is simply not acceptable. We will take the necessary measures to stop fraud happening in the first place, root out and take tough action against those found committing fraud and make sure the stolen money is paid back.
So it is not if they get you but when. If you are worried consult the experts – For more information or free legal advice telephone 020-7381-8111 (24 hour service) or email law@rhplaw.co.uk
