Client receives small fine for £18,000 Fraud

Case study summary

Our client was a mother who accepted she had been overpaid £18,000 in benefits after failing to tell the DWP about a change in circumstances. We persuaded the court that this had been a small error. Our client paid back the overpaid benefits and was only fined an extra £80.

Case study

We were approached by a mother of two who was terrified after she had been charged with benefits fraud.

Our client explained that she had to claim benefits for the first time when her partner, like many people in the UK, had lost his job as a result of the lockdown restrictions. At the time she was a full-time mother to her young child and pregnant with her second child.

Our client and her partner then decided to move across the country in pursuit of new business opportunities. This means that they sold their house and then ended up renting in another part of the country. Our clients house sold in the same month as she gave birth to her second child. As well as the normal physical and emotional strain that a new baby brings, our client was especially struggling because she was unable to have proper contact with her family and support network as a result of lockdown measures. It was in this context that she failed to inform the DWP of the sale of the house. As a result, our client continued to be paid universal credit when she was no longer eligible for it because her savings were over the set limit.

Our client accepted that she had made an error and she had already offered to repay the entire amount out of her savings that she had received from the house sale. This would ensure that there was no actual loss to the public purse.

She was very concerned about the impact of a conviction and worried that a large fine would push her into finical difficulties. Therefore, she instructed our specialist criminal defence lawyers to represent her.

In order to ensure that our client received the lowest possible sentence, we needed to convey how challenging the circumstances were that led to the offence. Firstly, we instructed an expert psychiatrist who was able to provide a report for the court which clearly, and in detail, laid out all of the factors which affected our client’s decision making at the time.

We also worked with our client and her family to obtain a number of character references. These ensured that the court were aware of how our client was perceived in the community.

We then instructed an experienced barrister who was able to sensitively and tactically outline all of our client's substantial personal mitigation to the court. Ultimately, we persuaded the court to only impose an additional £80 fine.

Our client was very relieved to have received one of the lowest possible sentences. We also managed to persuade the court to sentence her at her first hearing, which means that we minimise the amount of times she had to go through the stress of attending court.