9:20am Thursday 18th June 2009
A BENEFITS cheat has appeared in court after pocketing more than £12,000 in fraudulent claims – two years after stealing thousands of pounds from a Southampton pre-school.
Serina Barker, previously known as Serina Weeks, wrongly claimed the money from income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit payments during an 11-month period.
Her deception began just three months after she admitted stealing £13,235 while she was a treasurer at Oaktrees Pre-School, attached to Mason Moor Primary School in Millbrook.
She used some of that cash to fund a holiday to Gran Canaria while her thieving eventually led to the cancellation of children’s trips and nonreplacement of equipment.
On that occasion the 36-year-old was ordered to pay all the money back, carry out 200 hours community service and given an eight month suspended sentence by Judge John Boggis QC at Southampton Crown Court.
But just a few months later London’s Appeal Court slashed the amount she had to repay to just £750 – to be paid off at the rate of £10 a week.
Judges said it would cause her “25 years of heartache” to pay back the entire amount.
Now Barker will be sentenced before the city’s crown court next month after admitting three charges of benefit fraud at Southampton Magistrates’ Court.
She also faces serving her original eight-month prison term that was suspended on the condition she stayed out of trouble.
When Barker, of Langrish Road, Southampton, signed on for the benefits in 2004 she told the Department for Work and Pensions that she was a single mum-of-three.
But three years later she failed to notify the department that her circumstances had changed and that she had married Keith Barker, with whom she has a ten-month-old baby.
He left her last December.
Robert Booker, prosecuting, told how Barker wrongly claimed £12,190.27 in income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit that she was not entitled to from September 2007 to July 2008.
Mr Booker said: “She obtained those benefits when she was not entitled to after failing to notify the Department for Work and Pensions that she was living with Keith Barker as husband and wife.”
He said that during an interview Barker admitted that she and her husband had “massive financial problems” and could not afford to lose the benefits as she was pregnant with his child.
The offences came to light after her husband used the couple’s home address as his work address.
Peter Clark, mitigating, said Mr Barker was himself “financially irresponsible”
with lots of debt.
“He was working but did not seem to assist my client with her debts.”
He added that Barker’s offence was “unsophisticated”.
“She kept signing on without declaring that Mr Barker had moved in. It was no surprise she got caught.
Far from spending the money on an extravagant lifestyle she has spent the money on her debts.”
Barker will be sentenced at Southampton Crown Court next month.
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