friend may go to prison for benefit fraud. AIBU to think its unfair her partner will get off scot free?

[balenciaga]

there is a back story here, which i will try and keep brief. my good friend has been with a guy on and off for 4 years, he was amazing at first and promised the earth as they do, then he became very abusive (mentally, physically and financially) and she was frightened of him. He even left her twice for 2 different women but she took him back. However, 2 months ago she finally left him (thank god) and moved back home to her mums and is starting again, looking for a house, a job etc.

she has 4 dcs and turns out she was claiming as a single parent the whole time he was with her :( I am not making excuses for her but she was scared to stop claiming as he would not contribute financially and she was scared of not being able to pay bills, eat etc. Also, he pressured her into keeping claiming (which I can WELL believe) and assured her it would be fine, no one would know etc - basically so he could carry on spending his wages like water living rent free and doing whatever the fuck he pleased.

she only told me a few weeks ago what had happened. while she was still with her ex, she had been called in for an interview with the fraud team at DWP as they had suspicions and she confessed it all to them. I couldn't believe she had done it TBH but as much as I absolutely do not condone what she's done I can kind of understand her reasons, its not black and white, yes I did think why the hell did you not leave him earlier etc but its not that easy is it :(

her court date was yesterday. because of the length of time she kept the fraud up for and the amount of money involved (over 33k and that's just HB and income support - ie before tax credits even ) the judge pretty much decided as soon as she went in that the case would go straight to Crown. Her solicitor has warned her that a prison sentence is a real possibility :(

AIBU to think this could be quite a common reason for women committing benefit fraud? and that the law seriously needs looking at and these cocklodging bastards of an ex should also be made accountable?? it takes two ffs !!

No, I worked in a benefit office for a few years and you couldn't split child benefit or tax credits then. It all goes to whoever is classes as the main carer. Although it's been a while now and there have been a lot of changes since then.

"What is the cut off when a couple are deemed to live. Together? Is it number of nights per week? Registration to vote, with GP etc?"

Bills, finances, details held by schools and doctors, joint socialising are all mentioned in the guidance, iirc. Sleeping arrangements are actually deemed irrelevant.

DWP often seem to ignore their own rules though.

So I could be wrong. Please excuse my typing, am on my mobile with no glasses.

Tea, DH and I each receive CB for one DC.

Don't think there's been any change to the no-splitting rules Tetris. Shame it was one of the things that needed changing most.

I think that's becoming more common usual problem with that is you need more than one child for it to work and preferably even numbers.

Why on earth should the benefit system try to help dating

Completely missing the point.

Forget about kids for the moment. Imagine a simpler situation with a single woman - let's say she is disabled so there's no question she should be working.

Should she be allowed to have boyfriends. Has she got to get a man to agree to support her before she invites him to her home?

I doubt it's quite as extreme as that, but I think it does lean that way.

Four years makes it obvious that the OP's friend is in trouble, however you wanna slice it. However the current muddy rules do need to be made clearer as I can see that some honest bods could easily fall foul of them unintentionally.

Given the statistics on relationship breakdown some clarity, fairness and consistency across the board from assumptions about residency & maintenance to benefits & tax status when starting a subsequent relationship after children would save the government a fortune overall surely? It seems obvious the current system is broken.

Wouldn't quite a lot of problems be avoided if it didn't take weeks on end to stop and restart?

It's amazing how much people want to sit and pass judgement and demonise rather than trying to understand what happens in these circumstances. No one has said that the OP's friend has made the best choices or that it's a good idea to commit fraud. But it is possible to have some sympathy and think about how this can happen as a kind of accident, even over long time periods. It doesn't make it 'right', but it does help to stop this awful culture of judgement that seems to be so prevalent at the moment.

There's also an issue about how the state decides what a household is. In a situation like this, the state has decided that because people live in the same house and share a bed (when one of them hasn't buggered off) that they are actually one household. But in some situations that doesn't seem to be the case at all. They might have been living together but, at best, the OP 's friend and her children seems to have been a separate financial unit to the boyfriend. At worst, she could be said to have acquired an irregularly appearing dependent. It's all a long way from the middle class household ideal imagined by the people who devise policies. (Not that I think there's any way around that really).

And, even then, the thread is not really about the OP's friend at all (beyond the OP hoping that she doesn't get a custodial sentence). It's about the fact that one of the beneficiaries of the fraud faces no consequences because they didn't actually sign anything. The fact that the law can only hold those who sign the declaration accountable is a failing in the law (it may be an unavoidable one for various reasons, but the law and legal system remain imperfect). It's highly unlikely that the cocklodger was unaware of the fraud and, if he'd wanted it to stop (and most of us wouldn't want our partners to be committing fraud because we actually care about them) he could have stepped up and contributed. But he didn't.

The fact is, he sounds like a total shit. The fact the woman should have had the self-esteem and wherewithal not to settle for a shit or put up with his crap doesn't make him less of a shit. Nor does the fact that she made some very poor decisions in relation to her benefits and letting him move in. Hopefully he'll get to suffer the consequences of being such a shit at some point.

"Why on earth should the benefit system try to help dating"

To save a shit-load of money long term by encouraging stable cohabiting relationships that are not rushed into, meaning fewer one-adult families which is, after all, what the govt purport to want.

Great post CW

It's not missing the point. What do you expect the system to do?

We already enable feckless parents to leave without any penalty. Why should the system be tweaked to allow new partners to move in who won't take responsibility?

This woman is very unlucky she is surrounded by fuckers - however she could have chosen alternatives to theft.

They might have been living together but, at best, the OP 's friend and her children seems to have been a separate financial unit to the boyfriend.

And if they had proof of that, there would be no problem.

"Wouldn't quite a lot of problems be avoided if it didn't take weeks on end to stop and restart?"

Yep. Noone's ever managed it though.

I don't get what you are suggesting. How do you want the benefit system to mend this issue? You want to keep giving benefits to people regardless whether there is a new working adult living in the home?

The proof thing tends to assume middle class norms for living though.

How do you prove who paid for the shopping if you pay for everything in cash (as very many people on low incomes do)? I could pull up my bank statements and allow everyone to marvel at the hideous amount I've handed over to sainsbury's in the last 4 years, but that's because I pay by debit card (and don't generally watch every penny). I can't stress how much I don't want anyone to force me to add that up.

Same if you pay your bills in the various ways low income people often must that I've just realised I don't really know about as I've paid bills by DD all my adult life (and now I feel bad about my ignorance). You may not be able to prove that he didn't give you the £5 you put on the electricity meter, etc.

Yy fideline ppl in this position often feel they have to rush the relationship.
because if they spend too long dating or staying weekends together some busybody might report them.
therefore the relationship may end up being rushed.....an abusers wet dream.

John

Maybe there should be a legal expectation that cohabiting partners should financially support each other? That would be a good starting point.

Maybe we should start treating all adults as separate economic units?

Maybe we should tear up the child support system and start again.

I don't think it does assume middle class norms unless I'm learning something new about myself right now! I'm low income, on benefits, and use my debit card for everything. Nice paper trail in case I ever need to prove anything.

If you don't have a debit card though, you keep an exact record of everything you buy. That way someone can see no more money has been spent than money you have coming in. Bills that aren't metered would be in your name. Tenancy in your name.

There are ways of indirectly proving you don't take a penny from anyone.

Yes Darkest and if you are an abuser or know you aren't going to stick around very long anyway, agreeing to be financially responsible for a woman with four children isn't such a sobering prospect I'd imagine. In fact, you'd be more likely to say the rights things and move in with no reservations than a normal, decent guy would wouldn't you, as you know you aren't going to pay anyway.

The fact that the law can only hold those who sign the declaration accountable is a failing in the law

No it isn't! How else are we supposed to define beyond doubt that someone has agreed to something?

Without some way of holding people responsible or not the courts would be constantly full of people arguing over what was agreed and what wasn't, people would lie through their teeth.

People are prosecuted for knowingly living on criminal proceeds, I think?

And then there's the fact that many people in these sort of situations may lack the understanding of the system to be able to say (and prove) that it wasn't fraud because they were a separate financial unit. There are people who'd just think 'he was my partner (meaning he came to dip his wick whenever it suited him and little else), so it must have been fraud', when actually he wasn't contributing to the household at all.

The benefits system is a bloody nightmare and seems to be set up so as not to give you proper advice about what you're entitled to etc (while pretending that it does). I now realise, from MN, that I would have been entitled to HB (at least partially), FSM, etc for years in the past but I had no idea at the time. I'd also have been entitled to CTC but I was too scared to claim it because they'd paid it in the past then charged me for an overpayment that wasn't at all my fault. So I just didn't claim. I should probably have had tens of thousands in benefits during that period but I just struggled on and benefitted from the generosity of my mother in buying my food shopping every week and buying clothes for me and DS1.

So I can really see how no one in the system would have advised the OP's friend about how her cocklodger could stay when it suited him without her claim actually being fraudulent and how she could keep records so as to prevent this all happening.

Another recent thing is for benefit fraud investigators to just pull credit agency records. If any bill etc is in a man's name they shout fraud and haul the woman in for interview under caution.

A lot of women whose ex payed for something in lieu of child support were caught out by this. So were people whose live-out boy/girlfriend had bought them sky subscription as a gift.

But the biggest group harrassed by this method are recently separated women whose ex has been a bit slack about getting addresses changed. Tax credits particularly jump all over them. There is at least one thread of this sort a week in money matters. Then the onus is on the women to 'prove their innocence' in the meantime they lose vital tax credits. It all feels quite cynical.

Nice cheap 'kills', no surveillance or witness statements- you don't even have to leave your desk. There

I do think low-income, sometimes vulnerable and/or abused women are the low-hanging fruit in the crack-down. It's not very edifying.