not to be overjoyed that a mother of four is being sent to jail for massive benefit fraud?

[bigmouthstrikesagain]

story here

I just wonder what will happen to the children in this case. The crime Amanda Webber committed is serious and she should be punished but taking the mother away from her 8 children for up to 4 years will have a damaging effect on these children. The sentence should be in the community and involve her paying back society with work, making a contribution - not being housed in a prison.

This is not to undermine the seriousness of the offence I just can't see the 'benefit' to society of locking this person up - she is not dangerous - she does need to accept what she has done is so very wrong and make amends this can be done in a community sentence surely. The children should not be punished if it can be avoided.

Just my thoughts on hearing the news.

[PearlyWhites]

Black box ok had forgotten they had changed the ages for income support whilst caring for a child. Am glad you can still get income support it would be impossible for you to live on carers allowance. Which is a joke anyway, I don't bother claiming it for my dd because of it being means tested.

[Mimishimi]

"so I suppose if the mum was calculating she could have read up about typical behaviours in ASD and said that's how her dc were behaving."

Her observing those behaviours is not enough for a diagnosis though. My DS has a significant speech delay/disorder and his SALT insisted we get him tested for autism because she was , and still is, adamant he is on the spectrum. We had him tested by an psychologist who specialises in diagnosing autism and he said that whilst those behaviours were there, he had many others (empathy, social eye contact, interaction etc) which meant that he could not, in good conscience, give him a diagnosis of autism , not even high - functioning. He did receive a PDD-NOS assessment from a developmental pediatrician after this though which meant we were able to access funding for his therapy. We had to fill out so many documents and nothing has ever been charged to the funding except his therapy sessions (eg we can't get money out to pay school fees etc and every session has to be signed off).

To achieve the levels of funding that she did, she would have had to intentionally falsify documents, possibly even forge signatures. She is not a good influence on her children - I dare say they might regard the next couple of years as a bit of a breather.

[HollyBerryBush]

Well, I suppose I should do another thread, as it's tangent as usual but I cant think what I would BU about.

Alan Goldsack QC this morning has stated that children from criminal families should be removed and adopted out to prevent generational criminality.

Hypothetically, I can't say I disagree. There are an awful lot of children who deserve a decent up bringing, with decent moral standards.

However having said that, even adopted as babies, friends who have found their natural mothers are largely carbon copies of all their natural mothers worst bits. So that opens the whole nature V nurture debate.

[Jamillalliamilli]

Toughasoldboots that?s something that concerned me too, but they seized dvd?s showing the children from a young age holidaying and also not exhibiting autistic symptoms, as well as when performing, and no knowledge of problems from school.

To go through school these days with all the multi tasking, team building, learning objective ticking, and understanding examiner requirements, without encountering lots and lots of problems, and causing teachers difficulties, is highly unlikely, to the point of incredulity.

Saintly questioned if details and documents from other's lives were used.

I do some work with production skills provision workshops helping autistic children to learn to piece together the world, and acting to help them achieve and see they can fit into the world around them.

It has to be 1to 1 (or 2, even 3to1) It?s incredibly hard, exhausting, and very, very, challenging. If we get through with all of them just still there, that in itself is a massive success.

I don't want to say too much but it?s how I came across her, and her school with it?s brilliant little animation that mimics what we really do with autistic performers. Design pieces around difficulties, to create visual and audial flow.

You can find some of our performer?s profiles on the net, none of ours, we all do itr free, for them.

The point of ?living the lie? on forums, declaring yourself an ?autism expert? on profiles, teaching your children to act an role well, and becoming an education provider with a school with a ?SN provision? name and profile, but for NT children, are clear to me, but not all of them will have started out or been only for the purposes of intended fraud, but it?s what she's done with it all.

She says her children all have exceptionally difficult behaviours. They may well have had, and there may be a range of reasons for them, but none of the childhood dvd?s, photo?s, and school reports show them impacting in five different children?s lives?

Like most parents of children with SN?s, our photo albums, holiday snaps, school photo?s, home school diaries, reports, are a mixture of a few cherished magic moments, lots of at best 'funny for the wrong reasons', and tbh lots of very sad, especially the absence of other children.

They may need explaining, but they tell their own painful story.

The judge called her very intelligent. I believe she has closely mimicked the real lives of others, and constructed a massive lie, but without suffering the reality of what it means to parent significantly challenged children.

[xylem8]

i wonder how she eventually goy caught out?

[TheBigJessie]

However having said that, even adopted as babies, friends who have found their natural mothers are largely carbon copies of all their natural mothers worst bits. So that opens the whole nature V nurture debate.

Your anecdote is an anecdote, that can be be negated by my close knowledge of an adopted person, who is nothing like his birth mother.

Try getting a degree in statistics and a degree in psychology before making similar posts about actual human beings again. Then maybe they won't be so trolly and ignorant.

[MoodyDidIt]

xylem yeah i wonder that

i bet someone grassed her up good

[Jamillalliamilli]

Sorry, I forgot to say that one of the children is believed to have have some SN's and it's probably were a lot of this started.

[mrsjay]

i wonder how she eventually goy caught out?

somebody probably got pissed off with her for 'something' and reported her, people who try and get away with things usually boast iyswim. although her kids were on BGT according to the article so maybe somebody thought oh who does she think she is her kids are meant to be disabled

[mrsjay]

No it isn't just the money I agree with you mrsdevere it is the huge ego that probably drove her, as I said earlier an aspirational snob,

[mrsjay]

In her twisted mind, that gives her a level of importance and recognition.

this

[Jamillalliamilli]

She probably did Mrs DV, she apparently listed 72 disabilities across the five of them, so rather more than pushing it a 'bit'. But 'Bloody woman' sums it up well.

I wouldn?t be surprised at random checks on unusual claims outing her.

I was getting a disability component within child tax credits, without either realising it was there, or knowing he should only get it if DLA was claimed.

I?d ticked yes to is your child disabled, and no to do you claim DLA.

I was then called up and asked the extent of my child?s disability, who?d diagnosed them (GOSH) and educational arrangements, (statemented) and why I didn?t claim DLA. I gave honest answers.

Each year I was asked if I had a disabled child and if I claimed DLA. Each year I answered yes, and no.

A few years later I was written to again asking me to come in for an interview and was asked the original questions about extent, education, and diagnosis again.

I gave the same answers and asked what was going on. I assumed someone had made another malicious report against me. There?s been a few. No, apparently there was an anomaly on my claim, but the interveiw had sorted it.

Later the same thing happened again, same questions. This time I was told the anomally was that a random check had picked up I was getting a benefit that should only have been triggered by claiming a different one, unless I'd lied to them.
They acknowledged they had no evidence other than that assumption, to suggest I had.

Because they had already checked a lot about him and me, including quite possibly spying on us (investigators sat in on one performance of four of AW?s children) and I gave the same answers to the same questions each time, sometimes several years apart, I was told I wouldn?t be accused of fraud, and just needed to pay back what I could rightly have had, but actually shouldn?t have been given.

I told them I?d struggle to do that in the time frame, and was told to now claim DLA to pay back TC's, but the knowledge of how much we must be being snooped on and how it could be misinterpreted left me feeling it was better for my d/s not to, even if I get in trouble through not having enough to pay it off.

[Jamillalliamilli]

Tougasoldboots I think you and Mrs DV aren't wrong, but I think she might be quite a troubled person as well as a fraudster, tbh.

[mrsjay]

but I think she might be quite a troubled person as well as a fraudster, tbh.

troubled in which way attention seeking doesn't really make a person troubled

[Jamillalliamilli]

Toughas I don't think she really did, because of the way she's pitched her school, and used it different ways, and exactly when she has done what, (but maybe I'm a nasty cynic) and seperated and tied different things together, but I do think there may be an element of her coming to believe what she was saying at the time she was saying it IYSWIM.

[mrsjay]

It isn't rare for people who lie to believe what they are saying they convince themselves that what they say is true that is how they justify it to themselves it is really bizarre

[Jamillalliamilli]

No Mrs Jay more to do with her background and various relationships that make me question it than her fraudulent actions.

[saintlyjimjams]

I wouldn't be surprised if one or two of the kids were originally diagnosed when very young. I know a few children who have done extraordinarily well & h

[saintlyjimjams]

Bastard phone! Gone on to do very well and more or less 'lost' a diagnosis. But in that case you stop claiming. You don't repeatedly fill in DLA forms saying that your child can't do stuff that they can. Nor do you steal other people's stories & think they apply to your own life.

I mean ds1 needs help dressing. If left alone - as a teen - he'll appear wearing 8 year old ds3's t shirt & a dirty pair of trousers. Meanwhile ds2 - in his most recent professional performance - had five costume changes, 4 in 20 minutes. You can't do that if you need help dressing - needing help dressing indicates a very high level of need - it doesn't mean 'finds buttons a bit difficult'. (One of ds2's chaperones did make it her aim to teach him to do shoelaces - but that still doesn't count as help needed in planet DLA). Ds1 - in recept of higher rate DLA (which one of her kids must have been if she had a notability car) can't even WATCH ds2 perform in any of his professional shows, let alone take part.

She's a liar and a thief. She definitely stole money, and quite possibly other people's stories & ideas. I feel sorry for her kids but not her.