A Dutch Cap, to Cap UK Benefits

If ever there was another example needed, of the total systemic abuse the UK's welfare benefit system suffers from, and why it needs a far greater overhaul than this governments mild measures, its this:

Welfare Benefit Fraud Is Rife

Amanda Webber a mother of eight ... yes eight, has been convicted of 23 of 24 counts of benefit and other fraud abuses (including benefit fraud, obtaining a money transfer by deception, and obtaining property by deception), totalling £350,000 over an eight-year period from 2002.

 

She managed this feat by the simple ruse of claiming that five of her children had disabilities and medical conditions that qualified them for Disability Living Allowance (DLA). She had said some of her children had problems with their speech and language, physical and learning disabilities and behavioural issues.

 

Award of these benefits to her children, then triggered other fringe benefits from councils and charities, such as carer's allowance, tax credits and housing and council tax benefit etc, so the true amount of the fraud may never be calculated, but could be very much higher in monetary terms. But suffice to say that her lifestyle had given a her a council paid for, seven-bedroom property in Sussex (that’s a million pound property for me and you).

 

Despite all the fraud campaigns, she was only caught because she was so sure of herself, that her 'disabled' children were allowed to audition for ITV's 'Britain's Got Talent' show. She even sent some to fee-paying schools, and they performed in professional TV and stage productions, including 'Les Miserables', 'The Wizard of Oz' and 'Billy Elliot' .... her family at one point had a benefits income of more than £10,000 a month.

Her excuse for this lifestyle funded by the tax payers? ... well apparently she considered that sending some of her children to stage schools helped their 'self-esteem' (bless!), and that she felt the claims she made were genuine to help bring up her "extraordinarily difficult and demanding children with their myriad problems" ... which obviously didn't actually include any medical problems that qualified for state benefits.

The judge said she faced prison ............ but as that actually costs the taxpayers even more to look after her multiple birth products, it seems a false lesson. Better if the benefit system never allowed for such flagrant abuse in the first place.

Benefit Fraud - Just Stamp It Out

One way may be to cap benefits to women, to the number of children born outside of benefit dependency, and thus close the baby factories used to get ever higher benefits.   

 

Update:

 

Amanda Webber Benefit Fraud

 

She was jailed for four years.