A Nigerian couple, who stole the identities of dead babies as they successfully battled to remain in the UK while defrauding their local council’s hardship fund, received suspended prison sentences yesterday.
While living double lives and holding down good jobs illegal overstayers Jumoke Brown, 36, and Anthony Shodunke, 51, claimed they were homeless and penniless during the £17,737 fraud.
When their home was raided a blue BMW was parked on the front drive and twenty boxes of new shoes found in Brown’s bedroom, including a £715 pair of Gucci men’s leather loafers.
The previous Christmas a council social worker had delivered a luxury festive hamper to the family-of-five.
However, the pair had told Bexley Council they had no income, bank accounts or assets and survived thanks to the charity of friends, relatives and their local church.
In reality, mother-of-three Brown was a company director with a £70,000 a year turnover and her husband Shodunke had a £27,000-a year job.
“In essence you each claimed you were destitute and had no means support and were lodging with people without paying for that lodging. Those people were yourselves under aliases,” Judge Nicholas Heathcote Williams QC told the pair at Woolwich Crown Court.
“You had means and homes in those aliases that you assumed because you could not work under your immigration status so assumed the names of deceased children, who died many years ago.
“You then went on to claim those benefits on a false basis, maintaining you were destitute with no means of support when, in fact, you had the means.”
Both received ten months imprisonment, suspended for two years and each must complete 150 hours community service work.
Additionally Shodunke must complete up to ten days of a rehabilitation activity requirement.
The couple complained the total fraud was approximately £8,000 less, but the judge ordered them both to repay the full £17,737 within three years, plus £1500 costs each.
They created false identities to obtain employment and open bank accounts, using the details of UK-national babies who died in the 1970’s.
The couple were not legally allowed to work or claim benefits while applying for UK residency, but local councils have a legal requirement to financially assist families with children.
Both Brown and Shodunke have now been granted leave to remain in the UK and the entire family are living in a three-bedroom house in Caldy Road, Belvedere, Kent funded by £1300 per month Universal Credit.
Brown pleaded guilty to four counts of fraud by false representation between June 5, 2019 and January 31, last year and Shodunke two counts of fraud by false representation on July 4, 2019 and January 1, last year.
“This is a fraud you were both jointly engaged in, using the aliases you had for years. Brown made the first claim and Shodunke joined in shortly afterwards and it was very deliberate on the part of both of you,” the judge told them.
They lied in their applications for accommodation and living expenses that they were homeless, having been evicted from a property in Cherbury Close, Thamesmead and had no income or capital.
They lied again, claiming the entire family had lived rent-free in one room, but in reality they had rented the entire four-bedroom, two bathroom Thamesmead house, using their false identities.
Brown presented herself to Bexley Council as homeless and destitute and explained she was a single-mum with children aged eight, eleven and twelve years-old.
She said she had been in the UK since 1996 and there is no record of any lawful entry, stating she had lived rent-free with friends since 2013 and had no income, assets, vehicle, bank account or assistance from her partner.
Today her lawyer Alejandra Tascon told the court Brown was brought to the UK, aged eleven years-old by her Nigerian pastor with the promise of a good education, but ended up fleeing the family she was staying with, aged sixteen years-old, sleeping in bus shelters and abandoned shops.
“She was trying to work and make a living as an honest member of society. She was not sitting at home doing nothing and had little choice but to use these identities because of her immigration situation.
“That immigration status and uncertainty of her situation in this country meant she did not declare this to the council. She was told if she said she was homeless she would get a home,” added the lawyer. “It is the children that will suffer the most if their mother goes to prison today.”
Brown even secured illegal employment with her false identity with the Financial Conduct Authority and recently worked for the Department of Health and Social Care.
The family were placed in free council accommodation and given £768 per month in council taxpayers’ money to live on.
Their three children would also give them housing points, potentially jumping the council-housing queue over people who have lived in the UK for generations.
The council became suspicious when Brown claimed she could not remember the name of the friend who put her up in the spare room of her Thamesmead home.
In reality, there was no friend, the property having been rented by both defendants in the false identities of the deceased children, Janet Brown and James Brown.
An investigation revealed she had shown the letting-agent a £24,000-year wage slip and had put a £3,450 deposit down on the BMW, all in the name of Janet Brown.
She also made regular cash payments into her company bank account, which had received funds of £54,000 and where she was listed as a ‘Business Analyst.’
Brown used her company bank account like a personal account, paying her Sky bill, buying clothing, Ted Baker and Jimmy Choo shoes and a trip to WinterWonderland.
During the police raid Brown claimed the BMW was her cousin’s and investigators also found her storage locker, containing twelve years of incriminating financial records and income history.
Shodunke was also a registered company director, running ‘Brown Consultancy Ltd.’ and investigators found multiple statements from various banks.
Ironically, he recently applied for a security job at Woolwich Crown Court and the next-door HMP Belmarsh, where he narrowly avoided going yesterday.
“The money was for families in need, but they have used it to buy luxuries like Gucci shoes,” said prosecutor Georgia Beatty. “They took lengths to conceal their assets from investigators and Brown maintained for some time her alias was her cousin and was not particularly co-operative.”
Judge Heathcote Williams told the couple: “There is remorse, I accept that you feel and if I were to send you to prison it would be under Corona Virus conditions and lastly and most importantly if each of you went into custody that would be devastating for your entirely innocent children, one of whom has a serious health condition.
“It is up to you if you are prepared to live honest, trustworthy, conscientious lives.”
