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Woman ordered to do unpaid work after admitting £8k benefit fraud

Jeanette Baxendale
Jeanette Baxendale

A mother who went to war with her local council after it tried to charge extra for her disabled son to go on a school ski trip has been sentenced in court for an £8,000 benefit fraud.

Jeanette Baxendale, a mother-of-four, was spared jail after admitting the wrongful claims and ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid community work at Inverness Sheriff Court.

The 36-year-old, who has two disabled sons, was sentenced just days after she condemned Aberdeenshire Council for asking her to pay hundreds of pounds more for one of the boys, who suffer from cerebral palsy, to attend the trip.

The sentence was handed down at Inverness Sheriff Court on the same day she received an apology from the local authority over the matter.

At her home at Toll of Birness, north of Ellon last night, she said she would appeal against the court’s decision and insisted the wrongful claims were “accidental”.

She claimed she was dealing with her son’s recovery from major surgery and a custody battle at the time and had simply forgotten to change the details of her entitlement.

“I will be appealing as I have a job that needs me to work late at night and two disabled children to take care of,” she said.

“The money was used only for my children, I kept nothing.

“All I did was fight for my children, I have been fighting tooth and nail to protect them.”

Baxendale claimed the income benefit support over a period of less than six months, the court heard, and was not present when her case was called for sentence.

She was excused attendance at a previous hearing after she admitted failing to notify the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) of a change in her circumstances in 2011.

The fraudulent claim happened between February 1 and June 26 that year while she was living at Moy Mains farm near Tomatin.

Her defence agent John MacColl said: “It was an act of omission rather than commission. It was legitimately claimed at the outset but she omitted to tell the DWP when the circumstances changed. She is continuing with repayments although there is still a substantial figure outstanding.”

Procurator fiscal Andrew Laing told Sheriff Neilson at the earlier hearing: “This is a very particular allegation relating to a change in circumstance.

“The fact is she was still receiving income support when she was not entitled to it after failing to report her change in circumstance.”

Sentence had twice been deferred on Baxendale, a first offender. On the first occasion a background report was called for by Sheriff Neilson and he deferred sentence for a second time to obtain information from the DWP about the repayments.