Benefit fraud leads to prisonBy Buckhurst Hill GuardianTWO people have been sentenced for housing benefit fraud following more successful prosecutions by Epping Forest Council. A Buckhurst Hill woman was jailed for one month after being found guilty of a £21,000 housing benefit fraud. Audrey Bales, 65, of Gladstone Road, was sentenced at Harlow magistrates court after pleading not guilty to knowingly making false statements on four separate housing benefit applications between 1998 and 2000. She claimed she was not related to her landlord, who was her son-in-law, or the owner of the property, who was her son. The court was told that Bales, of previous good character, had been overpaid housing benefits of £21,174.39 as a result of her false statements. The matter, deemed by magistrates to be a serious case, had been adjourned until last Thursday for sentencing so that pre-sentence reports could be prepared. Bales was sentenced to two months' imprisonment for each offence to run concurrently but with the second month suspended. James Keane, of Smarts Lane, Loughton, and formerly of Clifton Road, Loughton, was sentenced to a 200-hour community punishment order at Chelmsford Crown Court following his guilty plea of supplying a false tenancy agreement. He had also failed to declare that his wife, who was in full-time employment, was living with him. He had received housing benefits from January 1999 until February last year as a single parent and was therefore overpaid housing benefits to the tune of £14,905.15, as well as council tax benefits of £1,061.64. Keane was also overpaid income support of £9,988.41, to which he was not entitled. 10:44 Monday 29th July 2002
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