Saturday 17 July 2010

Poor get the Slammer while the Rich go Free

Hailing from the North East, where times are hard and the women harder, we are pretty canny at milking the system. Benefits are a lifestyle choice. Many can make proud boast that the country has kept them, man and boy, in a style to which they are all too well accustomed.

A Giro a week works a treat, and if a little bit extra can be slipped Geordie's way, wey, that's champion hinny! Getting caught on the take is a sad but not unexpected fact of life. Getting jailed for it is something else.

Figures reveal that the poor are much more likely to go to jail for fraud than the rich embezzlers who can afford the best solicitors. Susanne Rees of Bridgend in Wales got 60 days for getting extra housing benefit to the tune of £19,000. Hardly peanuts. Except that Cheltenham businessman Michael Frost was given 60 hours community service for £65,000 income tax evasion. Smooth talker? Probably.

Records show that defendants convicted of benefit fraud are much more likely to end up behind bars than the tax dodgers. No sympathy for either - but surely some injustice here?

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