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Court hears pensioner at heart of £2.4m scam
A PENSIONER from Maida Vale spent 13 years plotting a £2.4 million identity fraud scam, a court heard.
Jean Hutchinson, 65, used names from newspaper obituaries to create fake identities and cheat the taxman.
Police raided her flat in Shirland Road and found her ‘headquarters’ behind a rack of clothes where they discovered thousands of documents, London’s Blackfriars Crown Court heard.
Prosecutor Anuja Dhir told the court that Hutchinson and her cousin claimed nearly every available handout including housing, incapacity and council tax benefits, both job seekers’ and disability allowances, income support and pensions.
Detectives discovered a string of bogus landlords and property companies, designed to avoid suspicion.
“This conspiracy was exceptional in its scope, organisation, duration and profitability – the Crown’s case is that she was at the heart of it,” said Ms Dhir.
She told the court that by the time Hutchinson and Dale were arrested last July, the public purse was £2.4 million poorer.
Hutchinson denies one count of conspiring to defraud the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and various local authorities between May 1993 and June 1996.
The case continues. |
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