Benefit cheat who had 8 homes must pay back £600,000
A SCHEMING mother who fiddled £600,000 in benefits to fund an extravagant lifestyle has been ordered to repay every penny.
Enid Bell, 67, and her daughter Lorraine bought eight houses and luxury cars with the fortune they swindled from the taxpayer.
Enid, who masterminded the scam, used at least eight different identities and addresses and set up separate bank accounts to make it difficult to trace the bogus claims.
Among the vehicles they bought was a high-powered Audi TT with a personalised registration plate that looked like LOZZIE B, owned by mother-of-two Lorraine, 30.
Jamaican-born Enid was jailed for four-and-a-half years last year and her daughter, who helped her by filling in forms, for two years and three months. Both had admitted conspiracy to defraud.
Preston Crown Court heard how they claimed £40,000 in income support, council tax and housing benefit between 2000 and 2007.
You are thoroughly dishonest and greedy.
Enid, who had been jailed for nine months for benefit fraud in 1995, started her dishonest dealings again the day after she was released, the court was told.
She claimed £106,000 in income support, pension credit, disability living allowance, housing benefit and council tax benefit in the name of Edna Davis.
She claimed the same benefits in the names of Edna Joyce Coley for £109,000, Joyce Simms for £106,000, Elmay Joyce Rose Simms for £58,000, Cynthia Bell for £58,000, Maureen Simms for £56,000, Ester Rose Davis for £29,000 and Margaret Smith for £23,000.
Jailing Enid last June, Judge Beverley Lunt told her: “You are thoroughly dishonest and greedy.
“That you were able to steal from the taxpayer money for 12 years to a tune of well over half a million pounds is a matter of grave concern.
This was money intended to help vulnerable people in genuine need and distress.”
Now, after a proceeds-of-crime hearing at Burnley Crown Court, the couple, of Whalley Range, Manchester, have been ordered to repay all £612,475 they conned from the Department of Work and Pensions and local councils.
Enid, who sat in a wheelchair in court, was ordered to pay back £347,400 – £82,400 of it from frozen bank accounts and the other £265,000 from the sale of properties and assets.
Lorraine was told to refund £49,000 of her £265,075 instantly, with the remaining £216,000 to come from property and assets.
The investigation which uncovered the complex and tangled web of deceit was triggered when pregnant Lorraine told hospital staff her name was Maureen Simms and claimed she had been raped. But midwives were unable to trace her.
When Enid was questioned, she first claimed to be Lorraine’s aunt before admitting that she was her mother.
Angela Allen, chief investigator for the Department of Work and Pensions, said yesterday: “It was a hard slog trying to make sense of the fantastic scenario that was unravelling.
“I was stunned by the complexity of the whole situation. It is one of the most satisfying cases we have had to deal with, not to mention one of the strangest.”
She added: “Enid Bell sat in her wheelchair during sentencing looking like an innocent church-going granny. In fact she is a very intelligent, shrewd and calculating woman, who masterminded the whole operation.”
A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions said: “The case was made worthwhile when mother and daughter were given prison sentences. It is even better that they were hurt more by having the results of their criminal activity taken away.”
The court decision to force Enid and Lorraine Bell to hand back every penny of their ill-gotten gains was welcomed last night by the TaxPayers’ Alliance.
Mark Wallace, the organisation’s campaigns director, said: “It is good to see benefit fraud being treated in such a robust manner. All too often those who cheat the taxpayer just get a slap on the wrist and in the majority of cases there appears to be no attempt to recover what has been stolen.
“This is how everyone who abuses our benefits system should be treated.
“No matter what amount is involved it should be paid back whether it is £600,000 or £6,000. That is what the taxpayers want to see.”
An estimated £80million was pocketed by benefit cheats last year with only one in 26 facing prosecution.
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