A WOMAN who fraudulently claimed more than £110,000 in benefits has been told she should be going to jail – but was instead handed a lengthy community service sentence to continue caring for her child.
Otilia Maria De Oliveira Teixeira (50) admitted a six-year scam in which she failed to declare a change in her personal circumstance – leading to £107,448.42 of income support overpayments.
Crown Advocate Lauren Taylor, prosecuting, told the Royal Court yesterday that Teixeira’s income support claim was originally legitimate, but, despite receiving 35 letters reminding her of the importance of reporting a change in circumstances, she failed to do so for six years.
Advocate Taylor said that a letter was sent which was “designed to mislead the Social Security Department.
As she was being investigated, Teixeira later emailed the department to tell it she would repay the money and that she “did not do it with malicious intent”.
“I wanted to give my children a better life,” she said, and later confessed to the fraud when questioned by police.
“I know I made a huge mistake. I want to apologise. I’m afraid of what might be the outcome,” she said.
Advocate Mike Preston, defending, acknowledged that benefit fraud of this scale would normally warrant a prison sentence, barring exceptional circumstances. But both sides agreed that Teixeira should get a community service order so that she could continue caring for her child.
Advocate Preston added that she had the opportunity to rectify the benefits claim and her failure to do so “is to her eternal shame”.
“She came clean, she said what she had done,” Advocate Preston said, adding that the money was not spent on a luxurious lifestyle.
Teixeira has already started repaying her debt, with £5,299.43 recovered so far. To recover the full sum, she would need another 27 years, the court heard.
Delivering the court’s sentence, the Bailiff, Robert MacRae, presiding, told her: “People who commit benefit fraud cheat the public by taking monies to which they are not entitled. It is a fraud on the public and you should be going to prison today.
“The reason that you are not is the circumstances of your children.”
The court had evidence that one of her children had “a serious health condition” that needs constant attention.
If Teixeira was jailed, the children would have faced undue hardship, he said, and “the merciful course and the correct course” was to give her a community service order.
He sentenced her to 312 hours of community service, a direct alternative to two years’ imprisonment.
The Bailiff was presiding with Jurats Cornish and Berry.
