Fraudster refugee had £1m mansion

An Afghan refugee and mother-of-seven who lived in a taxpayer-funded mansion estimated to be worth £1.2m was spared jail yesterday after admitting benefit fraud.

An inquiry was launched after it emerged Toorpakai Saiedi, 38, and her family ended up living in a seven-bedroom property in Acton, west London, costing more than £12,500-a-month in rent.

Saiedi pleaded guilty to four counts of benefit fraud last month at Isleworth Crown Court.

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Giving her a 10-month sentence, suspended for two years, plus an order to carry out 150 hours unpaid community work, recorder Oscar Del-Fabbro said: “You knew full well this was dishonest.”

He said: “The claim went on for just under three years. The full amount obtained by you dishonestly was just short of £30,000, a £30,000 loss to the public revenue.”

Prosecutor Henrietta Paget told the court how the four offences involved two separate frauds, one on Ealing Borough Council connected to council tax benefit and housing benefit payments, and another on the Department for Work and Pensions in relation to income support.

The total sum of the overpayments between August 2006 and September 2009 was £29,888.76.

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The charges related to a bank account into which a regular sum of money was being paid to Saiedi, which she had failed to declare when she made several representations to the council about her limited means, and asked for a reassessment of her payments.

In mitigation Zaki Hashmi told the court Saiedi admitted the offences and possessed “genuine remorse for what she has done”.

The judge said he hoped the sentence would act as a deterrent, but in reaching his conclusion, had also considered Saiedi’s children, her personal circumstances and the unlikelihood that she would re-offend.

Saiedi declined to comment on leaving the courtroom.

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