Benefits cheat posing as single mum exposed as investigators find her Facebook

dailystar.co.uk:

stole almost £72,000 by pretending to be a single mum was rumbled when she posted pictures on social media of her kissing her boyfriend.Andrea Lawner fraudulently claimed additional working tax credit, child tax credit, income support and housing benefit for five years on the basis that she was a single mum-of-two on a low income.However, the 35-year-old was actually in a long-term relationship with Scott Bennoch, who is thought to be the father of her youngest child.READ MORE: Top Pentagon staff 'deliberately promoting alien UFO theory to distract us', says expertInvestigators were tipped off by a member of the public and checked her social media account, as well as bank statements and loan applications which showed the couple were living together in Neston, Cheshire.Lawner wept during a hearing at Chester Magistrates Court as she admitted four charges of benefit fraud, including an offence of failing to disclose she was living with painter and decorator Bennoch.Alan Currums, prosecuting, said: "The defendant is before the court because she claimed a number of benefits she was not entitled to.

The benefits were paid on the basis that she had sole responsibility for bringing up two children on a low income."Any change of circumstances, in any or all of the benefits, should have been made known to the Department.

But she failed to notify a change in circumstances around 6 April 2014, namely that she was living with a partner as husband and wife.“Her partner was Scott Bennoch.

He had been in remunerative employment."Interrogation on Facebook showed that both parties were living as a couple. The amount claimed is quite substantial.