Thanet district Council press release
A Margate man has been jailed for 16 months, after fraudulently claiming more than £50,000 in benefits.
Michael Prior (39) from Hatfeild Road was arrested in December 2007, along with his wife Julie (44), for living together and not declaring it, dating back to 2003. During that time, he was overpaid £27,446.95 in Income Support, £23,378.55 in Housing Benefit and £2,659.62 in Council Tax Benefit.
Mr. Prior faced seven charges in total, five of failing to declare a change in his circumstances and two under the Theft Act, while his wife was charged with three offences of knowingly allowing him to claim benefits.
Both pleaded guilty to the charges and were sentenced yesterday (Monday 22 December) at Canterbury Crown Court.
Mr. Prior was sentenced to eight months plus another eight months to run consecutively and was told he would have to serve at least eight months. His wife received a 20 week prison sentence, suspended for 12 months and a supervision order for 12 months.
They were told by Judge Nash, presiding, that they were “both in the dock because of their dishonesty with taxpayers’ money” and that “as a taxpayer, I feel aggrieved and insulted.”
Cllr. Martin Wise, Cabinet Member for Finance, Improvement and Customer Service, said: “This case sends out a strong message to anyone tempted to try and cheat the system. This fraud had been going on for a number of years and had resulted in massive overpayments, which come out of our pockets as taxpayers. It’s never pleasant to see someone sent to prison just before Christmas, but it’s clear that the courts took this case exceptionally seriously in light of the amount of money that had been fraudulently claimed.”
To advise of any changes to your circumstances if you are claiming benefits, call 01843 577369.
News, Local history and Thanet issues from Michael's Bookshop in Ramsgate see www.michaelsbookshop.com I publish over 200 books about the history of this area click here to look at them.
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
1 comment:
Comments, since I started writing this blog in 2007 the way the internet works has changed a lot, comments and dialogue here were once viable in an open and anonymous sense. Now if you comment here I will only allow the comment if it seems to make sense and be related to what the post is about. I link the majority of my posts to the main local Facebook groups and to my Facebook account, “Michael Child” I guess the main Ramsgate Facebook group is We Love Ramsgate. For the most part the comments and dialogue related to the posts here goes on there. As for the rest of it, well this blog handles images better than Facebook, which is why I don’t post directly to my Facebook account, although if I take a lot of photos I am so lazy that I paste them directly from my camera card to my bookshop website and put a link on this blog.
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Good. It's leeches like this who make paying tax even more unpleasant than normal. Let's hope some 6 foot 8 bloke inside makes him his "special friend" for the duration.
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