benefits fraud/ student loan

[recneyes]

writng this for a friend who needs to know what can happen to her:
she was claiming income support for herself with 2 small children who were in child nursurey while she was going to university for a 2 year course.she is farely new to this country and recently became a citizen of britain...she was received a student loan during school time ,however she failed to report this to department works and pensions while she was getting income support. she was interviewd by fraud agents and she addmitted it and they said they will set up a repayment plan for her...i think its �100 a month. seems after 4 months paying the repayments now they want to take her to court...why would this be? they had already made arrangments to repay the overpayments....if prosecuted what is the worse case senerio? any answear will help.

[sausagechips]

jail but highly unlikely!
is she keeping up with the payments?
what country is she originally from?

[mizi]

this happened to someone i know,she has 2 children and a partner living with her but did'nt declare him,she defrauded �25,000 and was paying this back at �120 a month,after 8 months she was sent a summons for court and because she had shown to be paying back the money EVERY month without missing she was put on probation.I worked at the job centre at this time(2yrs ago) and i was surprised that it got to court after the agreement to pay back the debt.Im sure your friend will be fine but just remind her,"you always get caught in the end"it really is not worth it.Hope this helps.

[recneyes]

yeah that gave her some comfort. thanks again. it was only 4and a half thousand and with school and kids she just kidda put it in the back of her mind...but payments have never been missed since she started her fulltime job...thanks again...

[wolf63]

When you have been overpaid benefit you have to pay it back, but if there is an element of fraud involved they will also take you to court.

The fact that she is paying the money back will be mentioned in court and may help her situation.

Basically - you pay back the money + court punishes you for the fraud.