Whats the punishment for benefit fraud ?
These are the current guidelines on your question. Benefit fraud These offences involved the dishonest abstraction of taxpayers’ money, and were not to be treated lightly. However, it should be borne in mind that the crimes are non-violent, non-sexual and non-frightening. The Court suggested that for average offenders it is advisable to enquire how the Department proposes to recover the loss. The procedure for such a high amount of benefit fraud will be prosecution with possible imprisonment and recovery of overpaid money Considerations that might affect sentence 1. A guilty plea 2. The amount involved and the length of time over which the defalcations were persisted in (bearing in mind that a large total might in fact represent a very small weekly amount) 3. The circumstances in which the offences began (there was a plain difference between a legitimate claim which became false owing to a change of situation and, on the other hand, a claim that is false from the very beginning) 4. The
