[Ammi]

A shameless father is facing jail after he claimed almost £50,000 in child benefits for 11 years after his daughter died.


Jem Bakalej, 56, swindled thousands of pounds of taxpayers' cash in the decade-long scam, in which he pretended to be the single parent of Grace, who tragically passed away in 2001.


A court heard that between June 2001 and November 2012 he pocketed a total of £49,000 in state handouts for his daughter

Prosecutor Richard Dewsbury said Bakalej made a claim for benefits as a single parent of Grace - who was born prematurely on June 16, 2001.


But the child was actually living with her mother in Northampton and tragically died a month after her birth, on July 21, 2001.


At Northampton Crown Court last week, Bakalej pleaded guilty to three counts of cheating the public revenue


Judge Lynn Tayton told him to expect a jail term when he is sentenced next week.


The court heard Bakalej also applied to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) in March 2002 for income support as a lone parent of Grace, eight months after his daughter died.


He continued to claim income support until November 2010, stealing a total of £35,359.64 from the taxpayer


Bakalej also claimed child tax credits as a lone parent of Grace after August 2010, worth a total of £6,806.21.


As a result of his false statements he also received £6,826 in child benefit, which he claimed until March 2011.


Mr Dewsbury told the court: 'The child benefit should have ceased to have been paid the first Monday after the child’s death in July 2001.


'But he failed to inform Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs about Grace's death, and payments continued until 2011.'


Mr Dewsbury added: 'They only ceased when he failed to respond to enquiries from HMRC.'


Bakalej lived with his partner in Northampton and she also received child benefit for their other three children, the court heard.

When interviewed by police in November 2012, Bakalej told officers he had continued to claim for his dead daughter because he 'needed the money'.


He admitted he knew it would get him a higher income and accepted that he was being greedy.


The court heard Bakalej had also applied for Social Fund Loans in 2005, 2006 and 2007 using his late daughter’s details


The court heard he has not worked since 2000 and is repaying the money back at £120 a month - which will take him 34 years to do.


The case was today adjourned until next Friday after the judge said she wanted to hear more evidence regarding Bakalej's child support arrangements.


Dia Chakravarty, Political Director at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said afterwards: 'This sad case again highlights what a complete mess our benefits system is.


'The welfare system is a safety net for the those who really need it; benefit fraudsters not only leave taxpayers unfairly out of pocket but they also take away from the most vulnerable in our society.


'There should be much better checks in place to stop people taking advantage of the system, along with strong penalties when someone's caught out, not just a slap on the wrist.


..how a parent could do something like that...

[Nedusa]

Whilst I agree this was a clear case of fraud and this man should expect some jail time, I have to wonder at the ease at which he was able to commit this fraud.

It does seem a little too easy to continue to claim and receive this benefit. Surely there should be tighter controls like cross referencing death certificates with claimants names or something similar.

Given all the resources the Govt has you would think this type of fraud would be easy to detect.

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Nedusa

Whilst I agree this was a clear case of fraud and this man should expect some jail time, I have to wonder at the ease at which he was able to commit this fraud.

It does seem a little too easy to continue to claim and receive this benefit. Surely there should be tighter controls like cross referencing death certificates with claimants names or something similar.

Given all the resources the Govt has you would think this type of fraud would be easy to detect.

The system is clearly far too easy to scam. After the birth of my second daughter, we somehow ended up being paid double child benefit for her due to a mix up. We couldn't remember whether it was me or my partner who was the recipient for our first child, so we just took a guess and applied under my name. Payments started soon after... But then we noticed that, separately, the payment amount for my first daughter had gone up too. Basically, our first daughter was under my partner's name, and the child benefit for our second was automatically added to that. But was also being paid to me at the same time.

We called them up and sorted it out straight away (anyone who would risk a criminal record for £14 a week can only be a complete idiot?) ... But, I suspect it's likely they would never have flagged it up if we hadn't said anything.

[thesheriff443]

by continuing claiming this man was always going to be caught, its just a case of fraud, the fact that he used his dead daughter as a means to commit fraud does not add or detract from this case.

[Nedusa]

Originally Posted by thesheriff443

by continuing claiming this man was always going to be caught, its just a case of fraud, the fact that he used his dead daughter as a means to commit fraud does not add or detract from this case.

I agree........but the ease with which people are able to claim is almost verging on Entrapment. I mean in a moment of weakness a desparately poor family forget to cancel their recently deceased's mothers old age pension and now having continued to receive it find it hard to stop claiming it as they need the money for food and utilities. They figure it will stop soon anyhow but it continues for years.

It's only £70 a week so they figure the state wont miss it besides they have worked and paid taxes for decades and never claimed in the past. So they think morally they are entitled to it.

This is a more common scenario than most people think.

The onus should be on the Govt to put into place checks and balances that stop this type of unintentional fraud from being committed.

[Toy Soldier]

Originally Posted by Nedusa

I agree........but the ease with which people are able to claim is almost verging on Entrapment. I mean in a moment of weakness a desparately poor family forget to cancel their recently deceased's mothers old age pension and now having continued to receive it find it hard to stop claiming it as they need the money for food and utilities. They figure it will stop soon anyhow but it continues for years.

It's only £70 a week so they figure the state wont miss it besides they have worked and paid taxes for decades and never claimed in the past. So they think morally they are entitled to it.

This is a more common scenario than most people think.

The onus should be on the Govt to put into place checks and balances that stop this type of unintentional fraud from being committed.

As all deaths must be registered, you would think that it would be fairly simple for notification of a death to be passed on to the HMRC and DWP automatically. But apparently not. You're right it's too easy for people to fall into that trap - especially because, funerals are very expensive and are essentially "impulse purchases"... You get like a week to plan and organise finance for it, all the while still in shock and grieving over the death. So, you have people suddenly lumped with a £5000 debt before they can catch their breath, no real means to repay it... And it's easy to see why it might be tempting to keep that extra income source to cover it.

[thesheriff443]

birth deaths and marriages are only registered in the county in which they happen.
more is being done to to link goverment bodies.

the distance between the death and where the father was living was a factor.

[Kizzy]

To say we live in an age where info can be sent in milliseconds it's getting worse not better, information sharing between governmental departments should and could be better.
We're just living in a 'computer says no' fug, never getting to speak to a person or being able to connect to the correct department creates confusion and frustration for many too.
That said this man was committing fraud it seems, is it the worst case of fraud that HMRC have seen?... No.

[thesheriff443]

Originally Posted by Kizzy

To say we live in an age where info can be sent in milliseconds it's getting worse not better, information sharing between governmental departments should and could be better.
We're just living in a 'computer says no' fug, never getting to speak to a person or being able to connect to the correct department creates confusion and frustration for many too.
That said this man was committing fraud it seems, is it the worst case of fraud that HMRC have seen?... No.

the worst case of fraud, was weapons of mass destruction, not only did it cost billions but cost many brave men their lives.

[Ninastar]

disgusting.

[armand.kay]

By the tittle I thought this was gonna be another case where the body was hidden and the death not reported but the fact the death was documented is surprising because of how long he did it for without getting caught out.