Woman admits £1.8m benefit scam

A woman has admitted engineering a benefit scam worth £1.8m.

Jean Hutchinson, 65, stole the identities of UK emigrants and had payments sent to addresses in London, Hertfordshire and Hampshire. Read original article

Police found thousands of documents used in the fraud in a secret office at her flat in Maida Vale, west London.

Hutchinson admitted, at Blackfriars Crown Court, to conspiring with associate Ralph Dale, 63, of Halifax, West Yorks, to defraud the government.

'200 identities'

The court heard she scoured newspapers for stories of people who had left Britain for a new life abroad.

She stole the identities of nearly 200 emigrants they felt were unlikely to return home and claim benefits.

The secret office, at the Shirland Road flat, was hidden behind a rack of clothes. Documents were filed under the different identities used to cheat the taxpayer.

Over a 10-year period, from 1996, Hutchinson targeted a range of state handouts, included housing, incapacity and council tax benefits, state pensions, disability allowance and income support.

Payments were sent to eight addresses in London, Watford in Hertfordshire and on the Isle of Wight, the court heard.

Hutchinson initially denied the charges and two trials collapsed because of administrative problems.

But she changed her plea just before the third trial was due to begin.

She admitted one count of conspiring to defraud the Department of Work and Pensions along with several local authorities.

She and Dale, of Sunnybank, will be sentenced in June.