The £30,000 fraudster spared jail because she is pregnant

Cheating Khadija Khalib, 27, pocketed the windfall housing and council tax benefits despite having £27,000 of savings in her three bank accounts.

The post office worker collected £32,813 in benefits from the London Borough of Haringey over a two-year period.

The scam came to an end after officials spotted she had lied about her accounts on benefits forms.

But Khalib – a single mother – walked free from court after a judge was told she was six months pregnant.

Her first court appearance in connection with the offences came in April this year – before she became pregnant. Yesterday Khalib – who fled to Britain from her homeland 10 years ago – was handed a 30-week prison term, suspended for 18 months, and was ordered to carry out just 40 hours of unpaid work.

Sentencing her at the Old Bailey Judge Vivian Robinson QC said: “The mischief in offences of this sort is really contained in the word dishonesty. The dishonest abstraction of taxpayers’ money is something that simply must not be treated lightly, and it must be understood that when this kind of benefit fraud is committed, the courts will invariably consider a sentence of imprisonment.”

But he added: “I’m not going to send you to prison immediately for one reason and one reason alone – the fact is that you are expecting a baby.

“That’s not going necessarily to be an excuse for not sending someone to prison in all cases, but it is in this one.”

Earlier, prosecutor Archie Madden outlined how on four occasions, from June 2003 to October 2005, Khalib lied on housing and council tax claim forms.

On each occasion she failed to mention that she had thousands of pounds from an unknown source stashed in three different accounts. Mr Madden said: “Had the capital been declared, she would have been above the capital threshold for any benefit payments.”

In her first fraudulent claim on June 13, 2003, she had savings of £14,483. By June 2005 she had £27,622 in her accounts.

The court heard Khalib made off with £32,352 in housing benefits and £461 council tax relief.

Mr Madden said the council would be trying to get the money back from the defendant in the civil courts.

He said: “There is no such thing as a victimless crime against the public purse.” Khalib, who also has a five-year-old daughter, told the court she was also caring for her sick father.

The woman, of Wood Green, north London admitted four counts of dishonestly making a false statement with a view to obtaining benefits. Last night, hours after Khalib walked free from court, without opening the door a female who called out from inside the tower-block flat given in court as Khalib’s home denied she was Khalib.

She did not respond to a note posted through the letterbox, asking for a comment.