Inverness woman to repay more than £10k of benefits she fraudulently claimed
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A WOMAN who claimed more than £10,000 in benefits to which she was not entitled has been placed on a community service sentence after a court heard the sum is being repaid.
Meliha Bell (51) of Kilmuir Road, Inverness, had previously admitted at the city’s sheriff court to failing to notify the Department of Work and Pensions that her husband was living with her and contributing to the household expenses.
The court was told that, as a result, she had fraudulently claimed £8381.70 in employment support allowance, £2073.52 in housing benefit and £71.89 in council tax benefit between September 13, 2016 and the same date a year later.
Sheriff Gordon Fleetwood had previously deferred sentence until Friday of last week to allow for the preparation of a pre-sentencing criminal justice background report and to ascertain the outstanding balance Bell still has to pay back.
The court had previously heard that Bell was repaying the sum through deductions from her current benefits.
Sheriff Fleetwood had warned her at the last hearing that all sentencing options were open to the court – including imprisonment – due to the size of the sum involved and the long period over which it had been claimed.
Defence solicitor David Paterson told the court that Bell was a first offender and that since she was originally interviewed in connection with these matters in July last year deductions had been being made from her benefits.
Deductions would continue, he said, until the full sum was repaid.
He said she was now paying at a rate of £493 per month and to date a total of £5430 had been repaid.
He expected all monies would be repaid by the third quarter of next year he said.
He also argued that the report before the court was fairly positive and it was clear his client was remorseful and ashamed at her actions.
“She doesn’t keep well and her health was at its lowest point during the 12 months [the period of the offending],” he said.
“She appears to have learned her lesson.”
Having taken all the facts into account Sheriff Fleetwood imposed a community payback order that requires Bell to carry out 120 hours of unpaid work in the community.
