A benefit fraudster who spent over £40,000 of Universal Credit payments on extravagant foreign holidays has avoided jail time. Susan Pearson, 58, claimed £40,334.21 in Universal Credit benefits over a five-year period after lying about her financial situation, as well as bagging a £536 council tax discount. Ms Pearson, from Platt Bridge in Wigan, claimed to have no money but frequently shared photos from her luxury trips to Cyrpus, Lanzarote, Tenerife and Tunisia – leading friends to dub her ‘Miss Holiday’.
She was busted by welfare officials after a data match revealed she had undeclared savings with Nationwide and a Co-Funds investment account showing a lump sum withdrawal of £13,000. The divorcee, who claims £55 per week in carer’s allowance for her 83-year-old mother, insisted that she had spent some of the money on “windows, roof repair and a door”. She ultimately admitted two charges of dishonestly failing to disclose information at Bolton Crown Court and was ordered to use her savings to repay the money she stole but was spared a jail sentence.
Pearson’s social media profile depicts her as a jet-setter, with a post from one recent trip accompanied by the caption: “About time – not had a holiday since last week.”
One of her friends even suggested she must have racked up “more miles than Airforce One” in the comments. “I think she’s won the lottery [and] not telling us,” another suggested.
The 58-year-old broke down in tears after she was told she would walk free, after previously hearing that she could face two years behind bars under sentencing guidelines, the Daily Mail reports.
Judge Nicholas Clarke KC said: “I am sure you are thoroughly ashamed of yourself to be in the dock at that age. But I do not want you to remain in the anxious state that I can see you are in so I want you to know you are not going to prison today. But you will need to make arrangements to pay the compensation.
“In my judgment that should be sufficient to let her start again… The thing is, at 58, she has lost her good name. She admitted the matter as soon as she could before the courts.”
“Life took a turn she has found difficult to deal with,” he added. “She will pay the money back but she would be well advised to have that transferred as soon as it can be achieved and go straight around and make such a claim for assistance as is appropriate, as long as she is honest about her means.”
Prosecutors told the court Pearson had claimed she was “single, unemployed and had no savings, income, investments or other capital”.
Her defence lawyer Martin Pizzey added: “The defendant is rather overwhelmed by what is going on around her, but she wants me to stress that she knows she did something wrong … I would describe [her] as rather fragile and very worried and frightened by the whole process”.
Pearson added, from the dock: “I do not understand these things – I am not very bright.”
It comes after government figures showed Universal Credit claims hitting a record high this summer, with one million more people claiming the benefit compared to the same period last year.
