Bibi/Barker Saints and Scroungers

Saints And Scroungers puts the spotlight on benefit thieves. Those who steal

millions of pounds every year from the British taxpayer.

They also search out the saints -

people who help put unclaimed cash

into the hands of those who really deserve it.

Saints And Scroungers is all about busting benefit thieves

who steal millions every year and the crack teams of investigators,

determined to scupper their devious scams.

And, we also shine a light on those

who genuinely need the money and the people who help them get it.

They are our saints.

The saints get help and the fraudsters get their comeuppance.

And on today's programme...

Fraud investigators are trailing a woman

who claimed to be single in order to pocket

more than £51,000 of taxpayers' cash.

Is there any mention on there at all, on these forms of hers,

-about Mr Batty?

-No, she completely told lies on this.

And how one woman's battle with cancer

left her struggling to cope with her illness and her bills.

My fear was I was going to lose the flat.

I remember sitting there thinking, "Why did this happen to me?".

I think it's fair to say, every woman in the land

would know the difference between their husband

and the landlord they pay their rent to.

But some claim not to

and it's scroungers like this who know how to work the system.

But they are walking a treacherous tightrope,

because one slip

and their dishonesty could land them behind bars.

Meet 61-year-old Amtul Bibi from East Ham in London.

For five years, she posed as a struggling single woman

who couldn't afford to pay her rent.

But along with her husband Mohammed Bhatti,

she's suspected of defrauding the benefits system by over £51,000.

Her case came to the attention of the fraud department at Newham Council.

I'm meeting Emma Vick

to find out why.

When did you discover this potential fraud?

We found out about this fraud in 2007.

Mr Bhatti approached the Department for Work and Pensions

to put in a claim for income support with them.

He gave Kensington Avenue as his home address.

-Nothing wrong with that in theory, is there?

-No, there's nothing wrong.

He can put a claim in for benefit if he wants to.

He included his partner Mrs Bibi on his claim form

and the system flagged up that she was already claiming benefit

from that address in her own right.

-So this is when alarm bells start to ring, is it?

-That's right, yes.

Now, what benefits was she claiming?

She was claiming income support,

housing benefit and council tax benefit.

-How long had she been living there for at that point?

-Since at least 2002.

-OK, so we're talking about a minimum of five years?

-Yes.

Right. And what were her circumstances, as far as you were concerned?

She said she was a single person with two adult children

living with her, and she didn't declare a partner.

So now, all of a sudden, you've got this guy Mohamed Bhatti who's saying,

-"I'm putting this claim in because I'm living with this lady here with a couple of kids."

-Yeah.

-That's to the DWP.

-That's right.

But, of course, she's put a claim in to the housing benefits saying,

-"I live on my own with these kids."

-That's right, yes.

Something didn't add up.

Geetha Ramesh, one of Emma's fraud investigators,

began doing some digging.

We discovered by looking at her records that

we paid her around £180 every week towards her rent,

based on the information she has provided on her claim form

and the supporting documents saying that she was a single woman.

Usually a benefit investigation begins with a claim form.

What you write on this legal document

about your living and financial arrangements

determines whether you're entitled to money or not.

£180 a week is an awful lot of money, so what is going on?

Is Mrs Bibi living here in one of these mid-terraced houses in East Ham with just her children,

or is her partner Mr Bhatti, who's trying to claim income support at the same address, living with her?

Two completely different stories and they both can't be true.

Someone is telling porky pies.

Geetha examined the history of Amtul Bibi's claims

for housing and council tax benefit.

Between 2002 and 2007, she submitted four application forms

to Newham Benefits Service in order to obtain housing and council tax benefit.

We paid benefits on the basis of the information

she has provided on the claim form and the supporting documents

stating that she was only receiving income support.

She never declared her partner at any stage of her claim.

She also included her two non-dependent sons.

So, according to the benefits department,

Amtul Bibi was a single woman living with her two adult sons.

There was no mention on her form of Mohammed Bhatti,

the man claiming to be living with her as her husband.

She was claiming housing benefit in order to pay her landlord's rent,

so Geetha's next step was to find out just who he was.

We checked the tenancy agreement on our records showing

-BLEEP

-as her landlord and Londinium Property Services Ltd was the agent.

But when she contacted Londinium Property Services,

Geetha made a very interesting discovery.

They have confirmed that the tenancy agreement was issued by them

to Mrs Bibi and they have confirmed the landlord of the property was Mr Bhatti.

Hang on.

So her landlord was none other than Mr Bhatti,

the man they believe to be her husband?

It was now clear she had not been entirely truthful

about her application for benefit.

Is there any mention on their at all, on these forms of hers, about Mr Bhatti?

No. She completely told lies on this.

I noticed this box here.

"Are you, or your partner if you have one, related to the landlord?"

She's left it totally blank.

She's left it blank. She hasn't even answered the question.

So, she was just trying to avoid the subject altogether.

The fraud team now wanted concrete proof of the exact nature

of the relationship between Mr Bhatti the landlord and Mrs Bibi,

who he claimed he was living with.

Geetha contacted the UK Land Registry.

It's a government department that holds the title deeds for 24 million properties in England and Wales,

detailing who the owners are, when they were purchased and for how much.

Because we are an official record-holder of information

which is beyond doubt,

if a register says somebody owns a property at a particular time,

then that's officially the case they do,

and there's no means of, as it were, disproving that.

Although some of its information is available to the public,

professional organisations have greater access to its files.

We can help in lots of ways when people investigate benefit fraud.

It obviously depends upon the circumstances.

If a claimant made an application on a certain date and,

as at that date, he said he owned no property,

say he subsequently did sell it,

and say he says that at the time he made the declaration, he didn't own it,

recourse to the deeds will show whether he did or not.

This was exactly the information Geetha wanted.

Her check on Mrs Bibi's address was very revealing.

Searches on the Land Registry identified that Mr Bhatti

owned a property in this street

when Mrs Bibi was claiming benefits from the address here.

And that wasn't all that Geetha found out.

We also identified that he previously owned another property in Shelley Avenue

where Mrs Bibi was living prior to moving into the property in this street.

It seemed that the last two properties Mrs Bibi

had rented had been owned by Mr Bhatti.

A coincidence?

The council then requested details of the mortgages on both properties.

We made enquiries through the National Anti-Fraud Network.

They act as an intelligence function for us.

They can gain access to mortgage applications, bank accounts and other financial records

that they then pass back to us to help us with our investigations.

They approached the mortgage provider in relation to Kensington Avenue for us

and this confirmed that Mr Bhatti was indeed the sole owner of that address.

It also confirmed that he owned the Shelley Avenue address as well.

There's no two ways about it.

Mr Bhatti did own the property in this street -

the one Mrs Bibi was living in,

and the one she was living in prior to that.

So the question is, has he been living with her?

Is she his partner,

as he claimed on his application form for income support?

And, on top of that, had she been paying him the £180 a week

that she claimed for the past five years?

Or was she pulling a fast one?

Still to come, is the game up for Amtul Bibi?

-And you don't know Mr Bhatti?

-No.

-Right.

But would this suspected fraudster finally be found out?

Next, it's farewell to the scroungers and hello to the saints,

the innocent men and women all over the UK in dire need of government help,

and the people who show them the way to claim what they deserve.

Being told you're seriously ill and unable to work has got to be pretty unbearable

but, if on top of that you're the only one paying the bills...

Well, that's about as bad as it gets.

46-year-old Londoner Christine Barker

loved her busy life as an independent single woman.

But last year Christine's whole world fell apart

when she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

The diagnosis was a massive shock and it took a while to sink in.

I've come to meet Christine and hear her story for myself.

-Hello, Christine.

-Hi, you all right?

-How are you?

-I'm OK.

Tell me about you and your life.

Well, I'm just an everyday girl.

I used to get up, go to work, go to the gym, go out with girlfriends.

What did they say about the treatment? What were you going to have to go through?

They said, "You're looking at a full right-side mastectomy."

-That's about as serious as it gets, isn't it?

-Mm.

I was told, "You will have to have chemo and radiotherapy as well,

"and then go on tamoxifen for the next five years."

How bad did it actually get? What was the deepest, darkest moment for you?

The darkest moment was when I was in hospital

and I went to see the clinical nurse.

I said to her, "I've just had enough. I can't do it any more.

"I'm exhausted."

But just when Christine was struggling to cope,

she now faced a new worry - how to pay the bills.

Having been earning a full-time wage,

she soon found herself having to survive on statutory sick pay of £79.15 a week.

-You are a lady who lives on her own.

-Yeah.

-You're the bill payer.

-Yep.

-That must have been a really worrying time.

-It was.

I remember getting up in tears.

I said to my sister, "I don't know how I'm going to do it,"

but it was difficult.

It was really difficult. My fear was I was going to lose the flat.

I remember sitting there thinking, "Why did this happen to me?"

After three months, her sick pay was coming to an end

and Christine had no idea how she would make ends meet.

She applied for employment support allowance for people

who are unable to work because of illness or disability.

I knew nothing about the benefits system because I worked for 25 years,

so I knew nothing of claiming anything, didn't know what...

How to even fill out a form.

After a few months, she was told to come for a medical assessment

to see if she still qualified for benefit.

The person who gives you the medical assessment is a doctor but they're not your doctor.

They know nothing about me.

They've only got what I've actually put on the form.

And when I went up for this assessment, I got a letter back

and they said, "You're not entitled to the benefit any more."

-What happened?

-They asked you various questions and she said...

I mean, at the time, I remember sitting there in tears

because I was very, very depressed.

They ask you, like, "Can you walk?"

And, obviously, when I filled the form out, I put yes,

because there's nothing wrong with my legs.

Fair enough, my legs are not the strength they were previous to what happened to me,

-so I just filled it out...

-So, in a nutshell, it says, "Can you walk?"

-The answer's yes, but you can only walk so far, then you're worn out.

-Yeah.

Just when Christine was at her most fragile,

she couldn't see a way out.

But then she finally had some good luck.

UCH Hospital - that's the hospital I'm under -

has a Macmillan centre there.

I was introduced to the welfare rights officer through the hospital,

just to give me the support I needed, cos I didn't know where to go.

One in three of us will get cancer at some time in our lives.

Macmillan Cancer Support is a national charity

specifically set up to help people suffering from the disease.

Money worries are a real concern, second only to pain,

with regard to cancer.

My role is to help them to access all the financial support

that's available to help them navigate through a very complex area

which they probably wouldn't have had much contact with beforehand.

A few weeks later, Christine heard she had won her appeal

and, with the right information on her form,

her benefit would be going up from £65 a week to £94,

and there was more good news for Christine about her biggest monthly expense.

The welfare rights officer said,

"Did you know you're entitled to housing benefit and council tax benefit?"

So I went to council, they said, "You are entitled to it."

This meant her rent was now covered. It was a massive relief.

There's a huge emotional difference to people. They've said it to me.

I can see it with them in even their body language and demeanour.

When you've been able to sit with that person, explain the benefits they're entitled to,

give them some sort of timeline that they can work towards,

so they know they can budget and survive the next few months financially,

they feel empowered because they know what to expect and that's one thing less to worry about.

Thanks to Macmillan, Christine's finances were looking better.

But she was finding the side effects of her treatment difficult to deal with.

Then her nurse at the hospital told her about another charity, The Haven.

Set up for breast cancer sufferers, it offers

specialist complementary therapies and emotional support for free,

in centres like this one in Fulham.

-Hello, are you all right, love?

-Yeah.

The Haven's treatments are tailor-made to

cope with the physical and emotional affect of the illness.

It's staffed by trained professionals like former cancer nurse Tina Glynn.

-Hi, Christine.

-Hi, Tina.

-How are you?

-I'm OK.

-Lovely to see you.

-And you.

-So have you got massage today?

-Yeah.

'When you've had a diagnosis of cancer,

'the therapists need to understand what the body's gone through, really.'

Our programmes are very much designed to work safely

around the medical treatments people are having,

or surgical procedures they're having.

So just have a seat there.

OK, so what's been going on with you since I last saw you?

'They were very, very good.'

I just took up the opportunity to take acupuncture

because someone said to me that was very good for the hot flushes,

cos at the time the hot flushes were very rife.

Christine also signed up for regular massage to help with

another side effect of the surgery.

With this form of massage - it's lymphatic drainage -

what we're trying to do is open up the pathways,

going up around the neck and going across the chest.

The lymphatic drainage massage has been brilliant because my hands were quite swollen.

So we'll come round and we're just going to do round the elbow.

When you have your lymph nodes taken out, you can get lymphoedema

and it can cause swelling.

It can either be the whole of your arm or just your hand.

-How's that feeling?

-Better so far.

-Yeah.

'It's a very relaxed environment.'

Everyone knows why you're going there, all the other people that arrive,

so if you're sitting in the reception, you start having a chat.

'You get to meet other people that have been in your shoes.'

It's obvious to me that

these charities have been a massive support to Christine.

I've come to meet her at The Haven and find out more.

How would you sum up how Macmillan and The Haven have helped you?

Macmillan helped me financially.

I didn't know that if you are diagnosed with breast cancer,

you're exempt from paying for prescriptions for five years

and, again, they filled the form out to help me do that,

and also to claim travel expenses going to the hospital as well.

There was a form to fill out for that, so that was through Macmillan.

-These were all things you weren't aware of?

-No, I didn't know.

Literally the hospital becomes your second home.

You just get a receipt and you claim it all back.

-Every penny must have helped.

-Oh, yeah, everything did.

Macmillan had helped Christine deal with the financial pressures of cancer,

but she found a very different kind of support here at The Haven.

The Haven got me through the mental side of things

and all the emotions. They helped me in that way.

Christine is one brave woman.

She's been through a terrible ordeal coping with cancer,

but isn't it brilliant to know that there are charities like Macmillan and The Haven

to offer support to people like her, just when they need it most?

Now it's back to the world of the scroungers,

and Newham Council's fraud team were hot on the heels of a possible benefit cheat.

Amtul Bibi had told them she was a single woman,

paying rent at a house in East London and had been claiming

housing benefit and council tax benefit for five years.

Meanwhile, Mohammed Bhatti was applying for income support

from the same address, claiming Amtul Bibi was his partner.

The council's investigators discovered

that Mrs Bibi had lied on her benefit application.

She claimed her landlord was the agent.

But checks revealed that Mr Bhatti was the real owner of the property.

What's more, he owned her previous home, too.

OK, so you established that Mr Bhatti owned the property

that Mrs Bibi was living in and they were probably married.

Yeah, we think they were married.

We didn't have a marriage certificate but the children had the same surname as Mr Bhatti,

so we knew they were definitely in a relationship.

If that was the case, can he still act as her landlord

and she claim rent which she's got to pay to him?

-Not for the purposes of claiming benefits, they can't do that, no.

-Why not?

That's fraud. Under the benefit regulations,

if you are related to your landlord,

they cannot actually charge you rent for the purposes of claiming benefit.

-And she would have known that?

-She would have known that, yes.

She fills the claim form in and it asks the question.

It was time for the council to have a chat with Mrs Bibi.

We established that we'd got enough to interview her under caution,

so we sent her out an invitation letter to attend an interview at our office.

During the interview, she said

she did not know the owner of Kensington Avenue as Mr Bhatti,

and she also said she did not know the owner of her previous address in Shelley Avenue.

Amtul Bibi's story just didn't ring true with what the team uncovered.

At a second interview under caution,

things were no clearer to investigators.

So, having claimed in her first interview that

she didn't know anyone called Mr Bhatti,

Amtul Bibi now admitted she had been in a relationship with him.

Could she be telling the truth?

Could Amtul Bibi be single after all?

It didn't make any sense at all

because when Mr Bhatti completed the income support claim form,

he stated Mrs Bibi as his partner as well as carer,

and they both signed the application form in 2007.

The fact that Mrs Bibi and Mr Bhatti have a different surname

is not unusual in Asian communities.

They don't need to necessarily take the husband's surname.

On this occasion, Mrs Bibi chose not to assume Mr Bhatti's surname.

The investigators knew that Amtul Bibi had two sons.

If either of them had been born after 1973,

and Mr Bhatti was the father, they'd have the proof that she was lying.

One was born in 1972 in Nairobi

and the other one was born in the UK in 1975.

We then applied for a birth certificate

for the child who was born in the UK, and we established that

the birth was registered by the father of the child,

Mr Mohammed Latif Bhatti.

So let me get this right.

In the period when Mrs Bibi claimed not to have seen her husband,

she actually went and had a child by him.

How on earth did that happen?

A miracle?

Amtul Bibi's story was clearly not stacking up

and the fraud team could find no evidence that the couple

had not been living together.

Mrs Bibi claimed that Mr Bhatti didn't live with her

during the period of her benefit claim.

She provided a number of different addresses for Mr Bhatti,

but we have made enquiries which identified that Mr Bhatti

was never living at that address.

The time for talking was over

and the investigators now took action

and suspended Amtul Bibi's benefits.

Once Mrs Bibi had been interviewed and we'd collated all our evidence,

a report was compiled and this was sent to Newham Benefits Service

for them to calculate how much benefit she may have been overpaid.

The council then worked out just how much cash

they believed Amtul Bibi had conned out of the system.

We'd been paying Mrs Bibi between £170 and £180 per week

for a period of five years, starting from 2002.

The overpayment that was calculated was just over £51,000.

Still maintaining her innocence, Bibi began fighting back.

She appealed against her overpayment,

the decision was upheld by Newham Benefit Service and then she took the case

to the tribunal, where the tribunal judge disallowed her appeal.

In October 2009, shortly after Amtul Bibi appealed,

investigators were told that Mr Bhatti had died.

We have also obtained a copy of his death certificate,

which clearly shows that Mrs Bibi was his wife.

Address - Kensington Avenue.

So she was claiming housing benefit for the rent which she was not paying.

Mr Bhatti was living at this property

when Mrs Bibi was claiming benefits at this address.

The tenancy agreement that was submitted was created

solely for the purpose of obtaining benefits from Newham Council.

Despite all the evidence against her,

Bibi pleaded not guilty at Stratford Magistrates' Court.

Due to the seriousness of the case,

it was referred to Inner London Crown Court.

Mrs Bibi pleaded not guilty there as well,

so the case was listed for trial.

Just before the trial date, she changed her plea to guilty.

In June 2011, Amtul Bibi was charged with nine counts of fraud

under the Socials Security Administration Acts

and was sentenced to eight months in prison.

Mr Bhatti unfortunately died in 2009 while the case was still under investigation.

Had he not died, then he also would have faced prosecution.

Every year, over £74 million is lost through this type of offence -

two people who live together pretending to live apart

to cheat the benefits system.

Living together fraud is one of the most common types of benefit fraud.

Quite often, people think they can get away with it.

However, this case shows we will investigate

any allegations we get and, wherever possible, we will prosecute you.

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