Invent Children - Claim ££’s in Benefits!
27 06 2007How about that then?
Not only can you claim benefits for your “real” kids – but you can also make up some imaginary kiddies and hey presto, you’ve made a fortune. It seems imaginary kids appear to have uses. Of course, you could get caught. Like these two thieves did.
Couple pretend to have 16 children to claim £125,000 in benefits
“ A couple claimed more than £125,000 in benefit payments after inventing 16 children, a court heard. Heavy gambler David Wilshaw, 57, and his alcoholic partner Nancy Stevenson, 58, launched their four- year assault on the system in 2003 before they were finally trapped by their greed.”
As I read this story several questions came to mind… such as:
- Why didn’t social services ask to see any proof of the children? No-one even checked. Nice to know where your tax money is going isn’t it?
- These two were a gambler and a drunk. Wilshaw was losing over £600 a week in betting shops. Partner was downing the brandy like there was no tomorrow. Why are these people even parents? Just because they can?
- They already received income support (that’s social assistance) of £113 a week. Of course, Wilshire was unemployed. Why work when you can rob the state?
- Completely shameless, Wilshaw claimed he performed a public duty by exposing the loop hole
- I wonder how many fine examples of parents are cheating the system with their imaginary kids? It would be a real shame if genuine claimants got shafted because of scams like this.
Original article from the Daily Mail by Christian Gysin.
Props to mercurior for yet another interesting link.
Technorati Tags: inventing 16 children
Well unfortunately this is the problem in the UK, breed and we will pay, lie about your brood and we still pay. As a CF women who receives no tax benefits, who has never had a break in employment, who worked 2 jobs when I was at university, I find the people in this article utter Scum.
In the Daily Mail last week (sorry if this has already been posted), it broke down how much a single mother could receive in the UK - A single mother working 16 hours a week with tax credits per week = £487. Not bad. Anyone reading this outside the UK, do not tell anyone or we will have every single mother in the world moving here.
Here’s the link:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=461863&in_page_id=1770
DEAR JEEBUS KRICKEY!!
Oh how I hate paying taxes. HATE it. This is part of the reason I LEFT Canada. I hate to say it, but it is. I am tired of working my CF tailfeathers off so that these types of people can sit on their fat, useless arses and suck our country DRY!!
It’s the SAME in Canada. I know (not personally, bc I would report them) a few couples who live next door to each other but they BOTH claim single/childed welfare/benefits AND they both work. Makes me ill.
I hope they throw those freeloading SOBs in jail or shoot them. Hell, I’ll buy the bullets, with my non-tax-paying Hong Kong dollars.
How disgusting. Drunk as hell, breeding incessantly, and getting rewarded for it.
What a travesty.
Bet the kids will grow up to be lazy shiftless alkies as well.
they only have something like 2 kids real live kids, all the others are make beleive. “At first, the couple legally applied for tax credits for two of Stevenson’s real children”
but is imagining, worse than the duggars with real 17 children.
Sickening isn’t it? But the thing is, they can get away with it. Decide not to breed and you’re more or less penalised. i try not to think about how my taxes are going to support people who have made having numerous kids a careeer.
But reproduce like rabbits, well, the state will pay of course. These two are literally a waste of space. Pity they can’t be made to pay back all the money they stole.
Christine….that’s a nice tidy sum of money there. Not bad at all. That pays better than some full time jobs. And they do get help towards their housing don’t forget.
For those who become single parents against their will, I don’t begrudge them all the help they can get - I don’t underestimate how hard it is to be a single mother. Marriage breakups can cause that, and then trying to live on that amount of money is no fun.
But those who simply go on having kids, with an endless string of “partners” because the state supports them… I’ve no sympathy at all for them at all.
And as for 17 kids…
The only positive comment I can make about the Duggars and their brood is that they don’t take one dime of government assistance. Daddy Duggar makes enough to support his litter. Imagine how wealthy he’d be if he invested in condoms instead….
As for the imaginary kid welfare scam, it happens here in the US too. And people have been known to make up kids to get the tax deduction too. Just an other example of our CF tax dollars at work. Ugh.
I didn’t read the article, so I don’t know how things work in the UK. But we used to have this problem in the U.S. which is why they started requiring social security numbers for children now (before we only needed them when we started working). Now you can only get tax credit for kids with social security numbers and in theory they double check to make sure each number is used only once.
Apparently being a parent does NOT make you a better person or a more honest person.