Benefit fraud

[Roxmum14]

One of my friends is committing benefit fraud. I feel like I should report them however I'm feeling guilty for just thinking it. Back story, her partner is a narcissist, spends all their (benefit) money on alcohol and drugs leaving them with nothing when they have a little 2 year old girl to feed. Both of them hardly parent the girl leaving her alone for long periods of time to sit out the front smoking or just generally not interacting with her. They've already had social services involved before. To the point, she asked him to leave their flat about 4/5 months ago and then split their universal credit claim to separate claims. Since then he's been round every day, or every other day until recently when she's asked him to move back in and has told me she's not intending on telling universal credit as it means they'll get less money. What should I do? Should I report them? Will they know it's me? What happened if they are reported?

Already do, and have done for the last two years. She'll listen and agree but won't take action

@TigerRag I look after the girl 3 times a week already.

I am on UC, and have a DP. I would love for him to live with me, as it would help us both lots... but my UC would be stopped. I would not be capable of lying and keeping it secret from DWP.

If reporting your friend feels a bit off, then maybe have a word with her about how the DWP are doing random check on people's benefits (they are), and they might pick up from her spending that she is not living alone... and that you would worry that her benefits would be stopped if an investigation took place (which they would be) and how that would affect her and her DD.

I used to work in this area of benefit fraud, you need to report them along with full names and addresses or we won’t do anything. You can also put about the neglect and DWP can report this for you, or you can put in an anonymous tip off through the councils social services department. Include as much detail as you can.

Thank you, this is actually very helpful!

My concern in offering as much detail as possible is that mostly I am the only one who knows this much detail so she would guess it was me?

The first thing is definitely report child neglect this can't go on
No one should be ignoring child neglect friends or not

Your friend??
You're actually friends with someone who neglects their toddler? First thing I’d be doing is reporting the neglect and abuse to social services, I’d gather as much evidence as I could. Second thing I’d do is report them to hmrc for benefit fraud. And thirdly, sever all ties once you know that child is safe-hopefully with grandparents or a foster family

Why would you report her for benefit fraud op? If you are truly her friend (which I suspect you are not) why would you want to do that? Assuming you just enjoy watching the chaos ensue from the outside without thinking about the negative affect on their already suffering child. I would report the neglect absolutely, but I think you know yourself you’re not doing this for the right reasons.

This.

No, it would be treated as an anonymous source and she would never know exactly what you have said as we do not tell them. We just ask them about the partner living there. You could also tell her about the Universal Credit Review team who are checking everyone on Universal Credit as well.

I'd be concerned that her 'partner' is the one benefitting from this money more than your friend and her child.

If everything else is true on her claim ie the sickness etc then it could be he is finding a way to part her from her money or conversely it's her way of keeping independent of him. You are better placed than us to know if he should be in their lives and if he shouldn't then perhaps SS should be your first place to raise concerns.

Yes this is my concern. Most of her money goes on him and his "needs"

I would report the neglect and the benefit fraud. Poor little girl.

Social services will expect her to leave the man so she won't need to make a joint benefit claim with him soon if she does as they say.

If not I'd be reporting to social services that she's still got the druggie bum living round the child

You are making correct decision to report her on the benefits.
Im assuming his needs, are substance abuse and now he abusing even more in the home with the child.

By not reporting, only more bad things can happen.

This is MN. Judging by how enraged people are here anytime someone calls out benefit fraud, half the people here must be on the take themselves. Ripping off the taxpayer, and then turning up here to tell everyone else to ‘be kind’.

Yes, you should report her. Not that anyone here will tell you that you should.

So odd isn’t it.

I would not because the child is the one who will bear the brunt of the fallout.
I would be reporting to social services again.

Some posters already have said to report the fraud, so you must have missed those posts

You need to ask yourself if as her friend, this is an act of friendship or of necessity. Reporting the neglect is an obvious one as the needs of the child come first. But if you report the fraud what do you hope to be the outcome? And will this outcome help your friend and more importantly her child? Perhaps you are thinking she'd kick him out if DWP found out? She might, but she may also get prosecuted and add to her problems.

As someone who has just had a Uc review, they will absolute find out and will penalise her heavily. I would tell her that they are reviewing everyone and to make sure she’s updating her circumstances accordingly. Give her a chance to do the right thing, and then report her.
I had done nothing wrong but the review process was brutal and I felt physically sick at the thought I’d done something wrong.

Are you sure she's falsely claiming at this point? She has a month to report changes and you said that he's only just recently moved back in.

So he's abusing her financially and your solution to this is to cut off her income so she has nothing to feed her child with?

Gotta love a Mumsnet 'friend'.

They think these threads are so original.