By Staff Reporter

Last updated at 12:18, Wednesday, 20 March 2013

A single mother has been warned she could be sent to prison over a four-and-a-half-year £35,500 benefits fraud.

From May 2005 to November 2009, Samantha Glenn told the authorities she was entitled to income support and housing and council tax benefits because she had no other income.

But all through that period, Carlisle Crown Court heard, she was in fact receiving income from a trust fund.

The 26-year-old, who used to live in Hayton Road, Harraby, but has now moved to Lindisfarne Street, off London road, pleaded guilty to 11 charges of fraud – five of making dishonest statements to obtain income support from the Department for Work and Pensions and six of doing the same to get housing and council tax benefit from Carlisle City Council.

Prosecuting counsel Tim Evans told the court there were “suspicions” that Glenn’s claims had been fraudulent from the day she started receiving the benefits, but there was no documentary evidence to prove it.

Even so, he said, it was “a significant fraud” which amounted to just over £35,500 over four years.

The court heard that, though it did not excuse what she had done, Glenn, who has a four-year-old daughter, had carried out the fraud while in a “very abusive relationship”.

Carlisle’s Honorary Recorder Judge Paul Batty QC told her that for a fraud involving such a large amount of money, spread over so many years, prison could not be ruled out.

“You have admitted a large fraud over a significant period of time,” he told her. “Whether or not it was fraudulent from the outset it was an enormous amount of money and the court is bound to be considering all sentencing options, including custody.”

Glenn was remanded on bail for probation reports and will be sentenced on April 19.

First published at 12:03, Wednesday, 20 March 2013
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk