Being convicted of benefit fraud doesn’t automatically mean you will go to prison

If you have been suspected of committing benefit fraud and being investigated, it might be encouraging to read that according to an article in the Daily Star Sunday, 99% of benefit fraudsters avoid a prison sentence. While public opinion may be somewhat dismayed to discover that in the previous year and despite over 16,000 people having been exposed by investigators as having received a “recoverable overpayment”, 6,003 three were prosecuted and only 220 ended up in jail, despite the taxpayer and government being swindled out of £1.1 billion, you might be feeling marginally relieved.

However, before you begin to relax too much, these figures were released in 2015 and since then the government has begun a crackdown on benefit cheats. As a consequence, the need for a specialist benefit fraud solicitor at increased. You will be pleased to know that though we are a firm of benefit fraud solicitors based in Bristol, our wealth of experience in this field of the law now sees as covering the whole of England.

Here at South West Law we are also very much aware that a number of those people who were initially investigated for benefit fraud were not actually aware they were doing anything wrong. In certain respects, claiming benefits that you are entitled to is hard enough, but sometimes we don’t realise that a change in our circumstances can affect the level of benefits we are allowed to claim. Often it is the case that you could be well advised to seek the services of a solicitor even if you are only being investigated rather than waiting for an impending prosecution. In many cases we are able to assist our clients in reaching a very amicable solution with all involved agencies.

If you are being investigated for suspected benefit fraud, or have an impending prosecution, we cannot advise you strongly enough to