Illegal Jamaican Overstayer Who Hijacked New ID Jailed For £38K Benefit Fraud

A Jamaican overstayer, who arrived in the UK as a tourist over a decade ago while pregnant with her second child, hijacked an innocent woman's identity in a £38,000 benefit scam.

Latoya Paisley, 31, of Curtis Close, Smethwick, West Midlands even told the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) she was the victim of a fraud as she tried to hang onto the payments.

She was sentenced to twelve months imprisonment at Blackfriars Crown Court (pictured) and deportation papers have been served on her.

Paisley pleaded guilty to obtaining a £20,512 money transfer, by deception, from the DWP between July 10, 2002 and December 4, 2007 and a £18,424 money transfer from the London Borough of Southwark between May 17, 2004 and December 9, 2007.

“These offences fall into the most serious category of benefit fraud,” Judge Jane Sullivan told her. “You persisted in your dishonesty over a considerable period of time.

“You wrote letters claiming someone else was using your personal details when you knew full well that was not the case and you lied to the investigating officer when he tracked you down to Birmingham.”

The court heard Paisley used the identity of UK-born Deniece Beaumont-Walters, 28, who move to Jamaica with her family just before the defendant arrived in this country in February, 2002.

She was four months pregnant when she arrived on a six-month tourist visa and brought her daughter with her and has since had a third daughter and claimed child benefit for the children.

“By July that year she made a claim for income support in the name of Miss Beaumont-Walters, whose identity was ready and waiting on arrival,” said prosecutor Mr. James Vine.

“She later made a claim for housing and council tax benefit and was granted leave to remain for another year as a student on the basis a sponsor would provide accommodation and funds.

“More than a year after that visa expired she made a further student application in 2004 with a proposed sponsor, but they were clearly fictitious and she must have known that.”

By November, 2007, while still illegally claiming benefits, she was ordered to be removed from the country, but failed to attend the UK Border Agency office.

The fraud began falling apart when the genuine Miss Beaumont-Walters returned to the UK in July, 2007 and was refused a national insurance number on the grounds her's was already in use.

She was refused child benefit and jobseeker's allowance and began receiving threatening letters from debt collectors chasing £11,000 run up in her name.

A DWP investigator found her on October 4, last year in Smethwick, but she gave a false name.

When quizzed at the local police station in January she made some admissions, but answered no questions about the fraud.

Paisley's lawyer Christopher Judson said: “She says her plan was to study at a College in Chelsea, but her original sponsors were drinking heavily and smoking cannabis.

“It was not possible for her to stay at the address and she was in something of a vulnerable position.

“She was approached at a party by someone else who went away and got all the documentation for the claims.

“She was pregnant, homeless and had nowhere to live and wanted to get a roof over her head.”

Paisley claims she had to pay her income support to the fraudster who arranged the swindle and she lived off child benefit.

Her daughters are now aged twelve and ten years and two months-old.

Judge Sullivan told her: “I take into account the distressing consequences for the real Deniece Beaumont-Walters, who couldn't even obtain a national insurance number, make claims and was pursued for debts she had not accrued.”