Page 1 of benefit cheat take 2....... this time £18000

same paper same city / stoke on trent
same easy sentence / come too stoke take easy money and
laugh
£18k benefit cheat avoids jail




BENEFIT cheat Kerry Powell has avoided jail - despite illegally claiming nearly £18,000 in three years.
The 38-year-old, of Seedfield Road, Blurton, claimed income support, housing and council tax benefit from 1994.
The claims were at first legitimate as she was a single parent with dependant children and unemployed.
But she failed to notify the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and Stoke-on-Trent City Council when her circumstances changed.
Prosecutor Amy Jacobs told Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court yesterday Powell`s illegal claims came to light when the DWP carried out an investigation into security staff working in the Potteries.
Powell obtained a door supervisor licence in December 2004 and, a year later, started working for Revelation Security. She earned £10 an hour and averaged between £100 and 200 a week, the court heard.
A search of her home led to evidence that she lived with her husband.
When interviewed in March last year she said she did not disclose the changes in her circumstances because she was in financial difficulties.
She was overpaid £17,978.40 over about three years.
Powell, who had no previous convictions, pleaded guilty to four charges of dishonestly failing to notify a change in her circumstances in relation to her benefit claims.
Stuart Muldoon, defending, said Powell only pleaded guilty on the day of her trial as she could not accept what she had done was dishonest.
"She received her door supervisor licence as a result of a course provided by the job centre. They assisted in her obtaining part-time work. She disclosed that.
"She then changed employment and was often working more than 16 hours a week. She accepts she should have disclosed it."
Mr Muldoon said Powell had not yet started repaying the money as he advised her to await the outcome of yesterday`s sentence.
He said that Powell was highly regarded by former work colleagues and police officers who she often assisted in relation to town centre disorder.
He said Powell`s husband was unreliable and did not always stay with her and there were ongoing issues in the relationship.
Judge Robert Trevor-Jones gave Powell an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for two years, with 250 hours unpaid work and ordered her to pay £700 costs.
He told her: "The initial claims were not at all fraudulent or dishonest. However, the time came when your circumstances did change. You obtained employment and you began to co-habit and then married Mr Powell. The length of time when either one or both applied was three years.
"I am quite satisfied you knew full well you should have notified these changes at an earlier stage and you eventually acknowledged that yourself."