[2011]JRC159A
Royal Court
(Samedi)
12
August 2011
Before :
|
M. C. St. J. Birt, Esq., Bailiff, and Jurats
Kerley and Nicolle.
|
The Attorney General
-v-
Angela Louise Whelan
Sentencing by the Inferior
Number of the Royal Court,
following a guilty plea to the following charge:
1 count of:
|
Withholding material information from the
Social Security Department, contrary to Article 16(a) of the Income
Support (Jersey) Law 2008 (Count
1).
|
Age: 38.
Plea: Guilty.
Details of Offence:
The defendant made an application to
Social Security for income support in January 2008. She failed to declare that she was
co-habiting with her husband and was therefore assessed as the single parent of
two young children. The defendant
submitted three further income support applications in which she withheld
details that Mr Whelan was living with her in January 2009, May 2010 and August
2010. The result of this deception
was that the defendant was paid £55,778.35 when her actual entitlement
was £39,191.39, an overpayment of £16,586.96 or 42%.
The defendant initially denied that
her husband had lived at her address after the early months of 2007, saying
that she was unaware of his current address and that he would only visit from
time to time to see his children.
She later admitted she had withheld information from the Social Security
Department and that she had had multiple opportunities to declare that Mr
Whelan lived at the address. The
defendant also acknowledged that she intentionally withheld the information,
knowing that had she declared that her husband was cohabiting with her, that
her income support would be greatly affected and that she believed she
“would get nothing”.
Aggravating factors: the defendant
completed four separate applications to the Social Security Department
declaring that she was a lone parent in order to obtain a larger award. The claim was fraudulent from the
beginning and took place over a 2½ year period.
Details of Mitigation:
Defendant entered guilty pleas
early on; defendant has underlying personality traits which have contributed to
and maintained the depressive episode which began with the birth of her second
child and persisted ever since.
Previous Convictions:
The defendant has three minor
motoring convictions from the 1990’s but is otherwise of good
character.
Conclusions:
Count 1:
|
210 hours’ Community Service Order or
15 months’ imprisonment in default.
|
Sentence and Observations of Court:
Count 1:
|
180 hours’ Community Service Order or
12 months’ imprisonment in default.
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Ms E. L. Hollywood, Crown Advocate.
Advocate D. V. Blackmore for the Defendant.
JUDGMENT
THE BAILIFF:
1.
Those who
falsely claim income support are stealing from the entire community. Money that is paid out wrongly to
fraudulent claimants is money that could have been used by government for
genuine purposes with deserving causes.
In many cases such conduct will require a prison sentence in order to
punish adequately such selfish behaviour.
2.
Now in
your case Mrs Whelan you hid the fact for some 2½ years that your
husband was living with you. You
did that deliberately, knowing that it would affect the level of benefit that
you received. You would in fact
still have received income support if you had told that truth, but it would
have been at a lower level so that you were overpaid just over £16,000 in
all.
3.
Advocate
Blackmore has put forward mitigation.
She has referred to your guilty plea, the fact that you told the truth
after initial lies, your previous good character, the fact that you suffer from
depression, that you are at a low level of re-offending, that the money was not
spent on luxuries and that you have been repaying at £10 per day, which
means you have already repaid some £2,900. She has also referred to the fact that
your husband, although living there, certainly appears to have his own
difficulties and was not really contributing, and you were in many ways a
single parent. We have also been
particularly influenced by the fact that you are the main carer for your two
children, aged 11 and 4, and that a prison sentence would work real hardship on
them.
4.
Nevertheless
you have been at risk of a prison sentence because the Court wishes to send out
a message that those who defraud the community by obtaining income support or
other benefits by telling lies are at risk of a prison sentence. But we are not going to do so in your
case because of the mitigation and particularly because of the position of your
children.
5.
The
sentence of the Court is one of community service of 180 hours and we say that
the appropriate sentence would have been 12 months’ imprisonment. So you must realise that if you do not
do the community service, if you do not turn up when you are told to, then you
will be brought back and you may then be sent to prison. So we hope not to see you before us
again.
Authorities
AG-v-Morin
[2010] JRC 217D.
AG-v-Manners
[2009] JRC 212.
AG-v-Laverick 1999/4.
AG-v-Morton
[2007] JRC 127.
AG-v-Payne
1999/220.
Livingstone Stewart and Others (1987)
9 Cr. App. R. (S) 135.