The Nursery Boss and the Pole Dancer Saints and Scroungers

Theft of public money costs the UK taxpayer over £20 billion a year.

This case was one of the biggest cases we've ever had

and came into the region of about half a million pounds.

It's money which should be going into the public pot

to spend on essential services.

The victims in this case are the public

and the money could have been used to build schools or fund hospitals.

And throughout the country there are specially trained

investigators making sure that justice is served.

The system cannot be beaten.

They will be held to account at some point.

We meet the men and women across the UK committed to catching

criminals who steal from you and me, the British taxpayer.

But we also hear stories from people who genuinely

need help from public money.

I'd swap places tomorrow with him if it meant he could walk.

I didn't know there was anything better out there

until she started at the institute.

And sometimes they don't even realise they're entitled to it.

I just didn't know where to turn, really, or what to do.

Coming up, a trusted nursery provider steals taxpayers' money

that's meant to help parents pay for preschool education.

This funding is there to assist people and help children.

I actually can't believe she thought she would get away with it.

A woman who fraudulently claims higher rate disability allowance.

She told us that she was virtually unable to walk.

And a story of a four-year-old disabled boy whose devoted mum

turned to a charity for help with his development.

I felt just overwhelmed that he's able to do something for himself.

A recent report put fraud against local government

at £2.2 billion a year and some fraudsters have no scruples

as to who they involve in their scams.

She deserves whatever she gets because, you know,

when you work with young children in particular,

the one thing you look for is someone you can trust.

One fraud uncovered by investigators was really quite unusual.

People wouldn't normally associate a nursery with committing fraud

but as a fraud investigator, I know that fraudsters

come from all backgrounds

and we can't always identify them from the jobs they do.

In November 2011, Declan Khan,

counter fraud manager at Barnet Council,

was alerted to a potential fraud involving Sarah Tolner,

the owner of a private children's nursery in the Mill Hill area.

It's an affluent part of the borough

so mainly businesspeople, I would suggest, live in that area.

It's mainly large residences, mainly family residences.

Parents of three and four-year-olds across the UK

are entitled to a set amount of free early education.

The money is claimed directly by the childcare providers

and Barnet had become suspicious

about claims submitted by Sarah Tolner.

Since we started the investigation we know that she's a 56-year-old female.

We know that she had two children who are both of adult age.

She had a large property in Flower Lane

and in the back of that property is where one of her nurseries was.

The North London Montessori. It was a log cabin

and she did have quite a number of children there.

So it was quite a good business from that property.

Clair Green from Barnet Council wanted to know more

about the way in which Sarah Tolner was claiming her nursery funding.

I think the first thing that rang the alarm bells

to the children's service at that time was that there seemed to be

a number of children on the claim form who all had the same

date of birth within the same year, which was quite unusual.

Normally on a claim form you would see a mixture of dates of birth

over a number of different years for children that were three and four.

That's what sparked further investigation at that time.

As a nursery provider, Sarah Tolner would have to submit claim forms

for all eligible children at the beginning of every school term,

so the first thing the anti-fraud team did

was to look at her latest claim form.

All of the children's dates of birth were in the same year

and just before the term was due to start, which would have meant

they would have been eligible for funding for the following term.

Now, this could have been a coincidence or a genuine mistake

so the next step was to look at paperwork for previous terms.

We can see the same children's names were on two different claim forms

with two different dates of birth.

So, that sparked further investigation

when we started to look at all the claims that she had submitted.

In fact, the team looked at claim forms spanning five years

and using their unrestricted access to all council data,

they were able to crosscheck the children's dates of birth.

When we looked back at the claim forms back in 2007,

there were just a few dates of birth

that we established were wrongly input.

As the claim forms went on there was a pattern occurring

and that indicated to us that there

was more wrong information on each claim form.

Initially there was between one and five fraudulent entries

on each claim form and as the investigation progressed,

we found that the latest submissions went from five to seven.

But it wasn't just the number of suspected false entries

that seemed to be increasing.

The nature of the fraud was also becoming more brazen.

There was one instance when there was details of a child

where in fact they haven't even attended the nursery.

At this point the team had to interview some of the parents.

I know that my daughter had a fine time there

so I don't feel bad that I sent her.

Because I was a teacher myself, I sometimes believe

maybe I should have noticed something.

When you're a first-time parent it's confusing

so you turn to the school to give you that advice and, you know,

I would assume that the school knew what they were doing. Definitely.

We had to be careful that Tolner didn't find out

we were carrying out an investigation because there was a risk

that she may destroy evidence that she was holding at her house.

We did afford to interview some of the parents

and take statements from them,

just to confirm the correct dates of birth of the children

and the number of sessions they attended the nursery.

And from this they found out she had been manipulating

other information, too.

She was claiming four or five sessions for children who were

actually only attending the nursery for one, two or three sessions.

The money from the government scheme is paid directly

to the nursery provider

and it seems Sarah Tolner was claiming for the full 15 hours

for children who were only attending her nursery

for a few hours each week.

It's possible that as she received the funding, she was getting more

and more confident in putting in more wrong dates of birth

so that's why the numbers were increasing over the years.

In total, the team looked at 17 claim forms Sarah Tolner had filed

for children eligible for the government funded nursery care.

She'd claimed for 148 places of funding,

of which 74, we established at the end of our investigation,

were for children that weren't eligible for the funding.

And that's double the number of places she should have claimed for.

In total, we're talking about just over £37,000

that she received due to this fraud

that she wouldn't have been entitled to.

This is quite a serious investigation.

This funding is there to assist people and help children,

so this was quite a big case for the council

and for the council's fraud team.

The next step was to speak to Sarah Tolner herself.

They arrested her and searched her home for more evidence of the fraud.

When we attended the home address, she wasn't actually in.

Her son was there and said that she was at the hairdresser's.

Because we didn't want the son to warn her that we were coming

and there was evidence that we wanted to secure, we actually went

with the police officers and she was arrested at the hairdresser's.

She did ask if we could wait until her hair was finished,

but unfortunately, the situation didn't allow that.

She had wet hair but obviously we needed to speak to her

quite urgently about the serious fraud that was taking place.

She was taken from the hairdresser's

and went back to her home address, where the premises was then searched.

At the home address, paperwork was found which seemed to add weight

to the evidence the team already had.

Sarah Tolner was interviewed at the police station...

..and asked to explain all the inaccurate dates of birth

which led to the excessive claims.

With some dates of birth, the month had been altered.

We believe that you changed her date of birth by one month

in order to receive this funding.

No, I wouldn't have done that.

In others, it was also the year that was changed.

I haven't got my glasses on.

It looks very similar to me.

Sarah Tolner always had an answer.

I've had some staff also that come from Romania and Poland,

and their handwriting is slightly different, and more cursive.

Perhaps when it was written, the three looked like an eight.

I had a parent once who was filling in a form

and they had made a mistake about the date of birth of their child.

She denied any wrongdoing and said that it had all been a big mistake.

Probably just an error of not writing the numbers properly.

Clearly having received over £35,000,

it's a little bit more than a mistake,

or as I put to her, it was extremely lucrative mistakes.

There was no truth in what she said.

We'd looked at all the claim forms that she had submitted to 2007,

and the only mistakes that had been made on the forms

would have been in her favour.

There were no mistakes the other way round

which meant she wouldn't have got funding, so from our perspective,

they were all deliberate and construed mistakes.

Later, will the antifraud team

have enough evidence to secure a conviction?

I'm not really very good with the computer side of that,

so it's quite a complex process.

In my years of investigating for the council here,

it ranks among the more devious of cases that we have looked at.

I make quite a lot of errors sometimes in typing.

Now, while some people are intent on fiddling the system to

finance a very comfortable life,

others turn to charities for extra help with day-to-day living.

I love talking to Ethan. We talk all the time, don't we, Ethan?

ETHAN GURGLES

Yeovil-based Naomi Grosvenor has had to organise charitable fundraising

to give her disabled four-year-old son Ethan

the best life he can possibly have.

I would just love it if he could chat back to me,

tell me how silly I sound.

Wouldn't I? That would be lovely, wouldn't it?

The biggest one would be to say, "I love you."

I think that would be the nicest one you could say to me, wouldn't it?

Yes.

Naomi was 24 when she had Ethan

and she and her partner brought him home from hospital

when he was just four days old, to start their new life as a family.

Everything was fine.

It wasn't until the evening when we got home from the hospital

on day four, that was when everything changed.

That night, Ethan had some kind of seizure.

We didn't know what it was and so I shouted for Ashley.

He came upstairs and held him and it stopped,

so we thought, "Well, it's happened, what was that? I don't know."

You know, "Scary, but he's stopped now,"

so didn't do anything about it until the next morning,

when he had another one.

They took him to the doctor, who immediately sent them to hospital.

Once we were on Ward 10, Ethan's seizures became more seizure-like,

and that was when I started to think, you know, "What's going on?

"My tiny baby shouldn't be back in hospital,

"shouldn't be having all these bloods taken,"

and I think that was really hard for me, and at one point, I thought,

"Am I actually going to take my baby boy home?

"Is he going to stop having these seizures? Is he going to be OK?"

And that was so upsetting to see him going through everything.

He was just so tiny. It was horrible.

And Ethan's fits continued in the hospital.

From day four, when his seizures started,

Ethan would have up to 15 seizures a day,

and these lasted one to two minutes,

not overly long, but when you're watching your child go through that,

it feels like an absolute lifetime.

Ethan had a barrage of tests

and was put on medication to help control the seizures.

He was discharged but no diagnosis was given.

So you're kind of left thinking,

you know, "What's going on? Why is it happening?"

And as a parent, you want to know why, you know,

it's just your instinct to know

what's causing your baby to go through all of this,

so for me, I just wanted to know what it was, anything.

The stress took its toll on Naomi and her partner,

and when he was three months old, they split up.

Raising a child as a single parent is never easy,

but if you add to that an extremely limiting condition

that no-one seems able to diagnose, parenting goes beyond challenging.

-Hello.

-Hey.

-You must be Naomi.

-Nice to meet you.

-How are you doing?

-Come on in.

-Thank you.

Three months in, you've got no answers.

You're on your own, effectively.

You've got your family around you

but it feels like you're on duty 24 hours a day.

That's a huge, huge burden.

It's not what I expected.

It wasn't what I'd planned and it was really hard on my own,

and it's the hardest thing I've ever done,

but it's the most rewarding thing I've ever done

because, you know, I got through those sleepless nights.

My family and friends were there.

They picked me up when I needed picking up,

taking Ethan out for walks so I could have an hour's sleep,

and without them, I wouldn't have got through it,

not on my own at all.

Naomi researched Ethan's symptoms to try to find a diagnosis herself.

Then, when Ethan was around one,

she read an article about a young girl who had a genetic disorder

which affected development and caused seizures.

I thought, "Yeah, that's what my son's got."

I just felt kind of relieved that I might have done something.

All the searching might be over.

Naomi mentioned the case to her paediatrician

and Ethan was sent for tests.

They came back clear for that genetic disorder

but it was found that Ethan had a mutation in just one gene

and that was causing his seizures.

I was so, so happy that we'd finally found something,

my search was over, I didn't have to look for answers any more.

They were all there.

'Then came the worry of not knowing any more about this disorder.

'It's so rare, we don't know a lot about it.'

In fact, Naomi could only find

a handful of people who had the condition.

Have you got any further information about the condition

and what it means for Ethan?

There's nothing, I don't have a list of symptoms,

I don't have a list of signs.

They couldn't tell me what was going to happen in the future.

The only thing they could say was that he wouldn't get worse,

so, you know, that's kind of a hope for us,

but it doesn't give you, you know,

"Will he ever walk? Will he ever talk?"

So you've still got that huge uncertainty,

but we had stopped searching, I had my answer,

and whether I got any more answers from that, you know,

from the diagnosis, I had it and I had to stop looking.

The only thing Naomi could do was to encourage Ethan's development.

Her local health authority provided physiotherapy sessions

to help stretch his tight muscles, but seeing little improvement,

Naomi was desperate to find something more to help her son.

Friends suggested to us about going to BIBIC, which is

an assessment place for physio, where they would give us exercises

and assess Ethan's individual needs and create a programme for Ethan.

I read stories where they'd helped children walk,

they'd helped children sit up,

and for me, as a parent, that was so exciting and I wanted that for Ethan.

I wanted to be able to give him that chance.

This national charity offers practical help to families

with disabled children.

Tell me about BIBIC.

They have basically taken Ethan on and worked with Ethan one-to-one,

encouraged his development and built a real strong bond with him.

That means we can help him live day-to-day life sort of comfortably

and try and help him in his development.

The charity created a special programme of massage and stretches

for Ethan, which Naomi was able to do with him at home.

Shall we go and do some physio now?

Yeah? Is it physio time?

Is it? Yeah?

Come on, then.

Are you coming with Mummy?

MASSAGER BUZZES

Good boy. Ready?

Up your feet.

There we go. Up the front.

So this is a massage for Ethan

and this is really good to get all his muscles sort of awake.

ETHAN LAUGHS

He loves massage, just loves being touched, don't you, Ethan?

Very tactile person.

Massaging is funny, isn't it?

Is it funny? Yeah.

Now, massage Ethan's hands.

The first thing the programme focused on was helping Ethan

to open up his clenched fists.

When we first went, they told us that they would get his hands open

and they were absolutely right. They got his hands open within six months.

I just felt overwhelmed that he is able to do something for himself.

With Ethan's condition, you know, we are missing milestones

and so every tiny little thing that he can do is just incredible.

You just feel so proud that he has achieved something.

I remember the first time being able to put gloves on Ethan,

just mitten ones, that's one silly thing, but for Ethan,

that was huge. That was massive.

Naomi was determined to help her son

achieve what most of us take for granted.

The charity could teach her more exercises for Ethan,

but they were expensive and out of reach for Naomi,

who is unable to work and look after Ethan.

But she didn't let that stop her, and along with her family,

she raised funds to pay for the training.

Good boy. Good stretching!

Good boy.

When Ethan first started this, Ethan wouldn't lift his head up at all,

and now the more we've done it and the stronger his neck's got,

the more he can lift his head up

and actually be able to do it for himself.

The head control is just the biggest thing for Ethan and is the most

amazing thing for him because he will be able to eventually,

hopefully, sit up on his own

and the more we can encourage his head control,

the more chance he has to be able to sit up and do things independently.

When he's on his tummy now, he can lift his head up and look around.

Good boy! Well done!

You can really feel him pushing into the ball,

so he's really working hard to get his head up.

Good boy!

Look how strong you are.

Naomi had to become not only Ethan's full-time carer

but his nurse and physiotherapist as well.

Once we've worked on the head control and opening his hands,

our next aim is for Ethan to be able to sit up on his own.

'For him to sit up is'

going to be a massive achievement,

but with the help of this programme, I think we'll get there.

As Ethan's unable to move by himself,

Naomi's home has been fitted with special equipment to help out.

So we're just going to hoist Ethan,

lift him up from the floor into his chair,

and so we put the sling on him,

but you have to make sure he's in secure.

Ethan loves being hoisted. He thinks it's really fun.

It's to save my back a bit.

It's coming!

Is it coming?

Some of the equipment that Ethan needs is funded by the NHS,

but the rest has been bought

as a result of fundraising events by Naomi and her family and friends.

I love doing things to be able to help Ethan,

so in my current position, I'm not able to fund all of these things

for Ethan, so the fundraising is the bit that I can do my bit to help.

As he gets bigger, that will be our only way to lift him, really.

And Ethan's seizures are now controlled with medication

which means he only has one every two to three weeks.

You're kind of working it out day by day, aren't you?

Each day could bring a very good thing or a very bad thing.

As a parent you want to think about the future, you want to plan,

you want to dream for your child and I can't do that.

I don't allow myself to do that

because I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow.

One seizure could take him and that could be the end of it.

So just live every day as it is,

and hope for the best, really.

Naomi constantly talks to Ethan, to give him

the very best opportunity to develop.

When you're feeding him he makes an "mmm" sound,

-that means more.

-Mmmm.

Ohhh! And row row your boat.

He's starting to say the "Rrr" sounds.

So he's starting to pick up the beginnings of sounds and words?

-Again that's a little bit of hope for development...

-Definitely.

He eye points as well.

So if you give him a choice between two things,

he can move his eyes to point and then fixate on one thing.

And then choose between two things, don't you?

The future for Ethan is very uncertain,

but Naomi is taking every day and every milestone as it comes.

My main dream for Ethan is for him to be independent.

I want for him to be able to crawl to where

he wants to or walk to where he wants to.

To see him, you know, take his first step to find a toy or to

pull something out of my cupboard.

That would just be amazing so that's our long-term focus,

is to have him become independent.

Most of us wouldn't dream of claiming more than we're

entitled to but not everyone works with the same moral compass.

Fraudulent benefit claims cost the UK taxpayer £1.2 billion a year.

But thanks to those determined to protect the public purse,

investigators are cracking down on anyone thought to be abusing

the system.

Manchester mum of three, Sonia Mellor, was one such person.

The Sonia Mellor case came to attention in July 2011 when we

received an anonymous hotline tip-off about her activities.

The report suggested she was claiming benefits as a single person

while living with a partner who was working full-time.

Sonia Mellor at the time had three dependent children

and was receiving income support, housing benefit, council tax benefit

and disability living allowance at the higher rate for mobility reasons.

On paper there seemed to be no problem so the first action was to

go through her past claims with a fine tooth comb.

Sonia Mellor was in receipt of those benefits from 1999 for herself

and three children.

Her three children were all born and given the surname of the man

named on the allegation as her partner.

This wasn't evidence that the children's father was still

living with Sonia Mellor, but gave Roy and his team at

the Department for Work and Pensions reason to open an investigation.

All the investigations we do, we do background intelligence

checks using all the legal powers at our disposal.

The team used their powers to gain access to Sonia Mellor's bank

accounts and those of her alleged partner.

We came to understand that she was receiving payments into her

bank account from her alleged partner so we had reason to

believe that the allegation that we had received was in fact correct.

The bank statements showed that Sonia Mellor

and her partner appear to have done some of their shopping at

a large out-of-town shopping centre so Roy

and his team asked to view the CCTV footage.

We were able to identify her coming to the centre on four

separate occasions as a family unit and doing some shopping.

That's Sonia Mellor on the left with the handbag.

She's there with a child in a buggy

and her two other children and her partner.

This was the evidence that Roy needed to show that

Sonia Mellor and her partner were behaving as a couple.

But the footage from the shopping trip showed something that the

team weren't expecting to find.

They were followed by CCTV cameras throughout their stay

in the Trafford Centre.

You can see here from watching Sonia Mellor's activities that she's

having no problems walking long distances throughout the centre.

And indeed, no problem carrying the pushchair with

the baby in down a flight of stairs with her partner.

This brought Sonia Mellor's claim for Disability Living

Allowance into question but Roy and his team needed more proof

so they conducted surveillance over a period of three months.

You can see here that Miss Mellor is

walking from her children's

school back home. This is a distance of about 1.5 miles.

You can see that although she's got a pushchair to lean against,

she doesn't appear to be having any physical disabilities whatsoever.

No problems in walking.

Sonia Mellor had been claiming the higher rate of Disability

Living Allowance.

She told us she couldn't walk any distance,

she had trouble getting herself ready in the morning,

and also that she suffered from an array of different medical

conditions which meant she was virtually unable to walk.

Sonia Mellor's benefit claims went back to 1999.

So that meant the potential overpayment in her case was

going to easily exceed £100,000.

The Department for Work and Pensions now had their case

and in January 2012 Sonia Mellor was arrested and her house was searched.

Among the items we seized that day were a series of video

clips of her in her house.

Here you can see one such clip of Miss Mellor on her pole

in the living room showing no signs of physical disability

and different to what was portrayed on her claim form.

In this family video clip you can see

Sonia Mellor on the trampoline in the back garden of the address,

again showing no signs of physical discomfort

and able to use the trampoline without any difficulty whatsoever.

Sonia Mellor's mobile phone was analysed

and it showed texts sent to her partner on days she was attending

medical appointments arranged by the Department for Work

and Pensions to verify her need for Disability Living Allowance.

Those text messages clearly gave us the impression

and belief that she knew exactly what she was doing.

She knew she was deliberately defrauding the department.

Her partner knew also.

It was clear that she wanted to buy a wheelchair to support her

claim and to hoodwink the medical profession.

The wheelchair was found during the search of Sonia Mellor's

four-bedroom detached home.

It was under some rubbish in the garage

and it was in pristine condition.

So clearly she had just used it on the one occasion to attend

for a medical.

The text traffic between the two of them

clearly showed that they knew they were living together as a couple

and that they should have declared that they were doing so, and

it was very damning, the evidence.

Sonia Mellor was charged with fraudulently claiming

Disability Living Allowance, income support, housing benefit

and council tax benefit.

Her partner hadn't claimed any benefits

and wasn't charged with any wrongdoing.

Living together fraud is one of the most prevalent frauds that the

department has to deal with.

Lone parents who fail to tell us when their partner

comes in to live with them and can support the family, basically.

In Sonia Mellor's case, she had her partner living with her

and his earnings varied between £50-£100,000 a year.

So he could clearly support his partner and three children.

In February 2014,

Sonia Mellor appeared in the dock at Manchester Crown Court.

She pleaded guilty to taking around half the amount

she was known to owe, which was accepted by the court.

The overpayment before the courts was £115,000.

But the Department for Work and Pensions

is chasing her for the full amount she owes.

In addition to that, there's a further overpayment that

wasn't brought before sentencing today which takes the total

overpayment to over £222,000.

She'll be subject to civil proceedings to

recover as much of that money as we can.

Sonia Mellor was sentenced to 12 months in prison,

suspended for 18 months.

She has a supervision order for one year

and must obey a curfew order for four months.

This was a deliberate fraud, perpetrated over many years

and she knew exactly what she was doing.

Her only reason for doing so, in our opinion, was greed.

Her partner had a successful job in the media

and was earning a good salary.

Some people help themselves to benefits

they're not entitled to while others are determined not to

ask for any help at all, despite really needing it.

Sometimes that help can provide a lifeline

to ensure that they can continue to remain independent.

81-year-old Maxine Turkington is fiercely self-sufficient -

even when she started to lose her sight.

I've always had trouble seeing at night,

but I didn't realise that I could see less than most people.

And it gradually got worse, so by the time I was 50,

I could no longer drive.

Diagnosed 30 years ago with an inherited condition

called Stargardt, Maxine was left with no central vision.

And I'm, in fact, registered blind.

I can't read, I can't recognise people,

I can't distinguish colours that are close to each other.

But I do have peripheral vision.

After Maxine's husband Syd died,

she was in danger of becoming isolated -

until she found some invaluable help.

So, what is it you want to look at today?

Well, one thing I'd like to know is how to generate e-mails.

Paul Cutmore, a volunteer for a charity called IT Can Help,

which teaches visually impaired people to use computers,

visits Maxine whenever she needs assistance.

If someone needs help, they just call up the helpline

and the problem is allocated to a local volunteer like me,

and hopefully gets that problem sorted.

When Paul first began working with Maxine,

she'd never really used a computer.

But, with his help, she quickly grasped the basics.

When I started, you know, it took a while to get used to it -

and now I more or less know where the letters are.

As you see, it's a large keyboard, and it's white on black,

which is very important.

She really is a remarkable person.

She has a special programme on her computer called Guide,

which helps people who are partially sighted, like Maxine,

with doing things like e-mail and web access.

And, before too long,

Maxine's new-found skills were opening up her world.

I communicate with friends in America by e-mail -

so I don't have to pay expensive phone bills.

I keep in e-mail communication with my daughter,

who hates to use the phone and is studying,

so the phone would interrupt her -

but she'll see an e-mail and immediately respond to that.

You know, being able to e-mail, for someone like her,

is really quite life-changing, I think.

Maxine wanted to do something in turn

to help other visually impaired people,

and came up with an idea that involved hundreds of recipes

she'd collected over the years.

Is this a recipe you made up?

-This is from my book.

-Right.

Maxine wanted to create a cookery book for visually impaired people,

and daughter Karen gave her mum plenty of encouragement.

You've always been a good cook - I mean, I remember.

When I was young, your food was always delicious.

Everybody knew that I was visually impaired -

they all assumed that Syd cooked the meals,

so they would compliment him on his cooking!

I'd say, "Hey, wait a minute!"

With Paul's help, Maxine scanned all her old recipes onto the computer,

and put together her very own book.

What I have been able to do as a volunteer with IT Can Help

is to just encourage her, and say that, you know,

all of these things are possible.

If you want to use the computer,

there are ways and means of doing it.

And it's not just Maxine's literary life that's profited -

her new-found skills have their use all around the home.

If I miss a programme, I want to be able to regenerate the programme

so I can watch something I've missed -

I fall asleep in murder mysteries, so this way I'll be able to find

out who the murderer was, that would always help.

Aided by the latest technology,

Maxine's confidence has bloomed, and she's even gone on to volunteer

for two charities, often giving motivational speeches.

I do that sort of off the cuff - I don't have to read, I just do it.

"How many minutes do you want me to talk?"

You might have noticed I don't have trouble talking!

And it's only natural for someone

so chatty that Maxine wants to use this new technology to the full.

-But you'd like to learn how to use the internet, wouldn't you?

-Mm.

I'd sort of like to learn how to Twitter - and get online.

Absorbed by her new challenges,

Maxine won't let her problems get in the way.

When your life changes, change your life.

You know? Forget about what you can't do, it's not relevant.

Think about what you can do - start doing it.

And as you gain confidence,

you'll find you can do more and more and more,

until at the end you can do almost everything that you did

before you got old or lost your sight.

Back in Barnet,

the corporate counter fraud team were investigating a case

of fraudulent claims for government funded nursery care by Sarah Tolner.

She'd been arrested, but kept claiming that it was all a mistake.

The team needed more evidence

if they were to prove that Sarah Tolner had intentionally

altered the details on the forms in order to claim more money.

So, they diligently scoured the paperwork they'd found

at her home address.

We found forms that were signed by - at the time, we thought the parents,

that were enrolment forms for the children into the nursery.

Further investigation found

that Sarah Tolner had actually signed those forms herself,

in place of the parents,

and she had entered wrong details on them,

to make it look as though the false details

she was putting on the claim forms was in fact correct.

This was the evidence the team needed to prove their case.

At that point there was no doubt in our minds

that a serious fraud had been committed.

The next stage was to prepare the case for court.

When we got to court, Miss Tolner pleaded not guilty,

which meant that we had to go out and obtain further evidence

and further statements.

We had to put a lot of the parents on notice

that they may have to attend court to give evidence -

so they were quite distressed by this.

And, by pleading not guilty, that meant Sarah Tolner would have

to give evidence at Crown Court in front of a jury.

The implications of that are that there's extra

costs for the council, the investigation is prolonged,

there's more pressure on witnesses, because they would potentially

have to attend court, and the cost of putting file cases together,

the cost of further court attendances,

would all be increased.

The trial date was set for January 2013.

Before the beginning of that trial, Tolner entered

the plea of guilty,

which put a halt to the trial process.

And she was then sentenced.

All of the evidence that we had presented was correct -

however, it was quite frustrating

that we had been through a long process,

and there'd been several opportunities

for her to plead guilty, and we'd had to continue the investigation,

and warn witnesses and so on.

If she'd have pleaded guilty at the earliest opportunity,

it would have meant less money would have been lost to the public purse.

15 counts of fraud were put before the judge.

They called three witnesses, who were character witnesses for Tolner,

and the judge then decided on what sentence to dish out.

The judge sentenced Sarah Tolner to ten months in prison,

which was suspended for 18 months.

He also sentenced her to 200 hours of unpaid work,

and she was also ordered to repay the full amount, £37,000,

as well as the cost to the council, which was just over £18,000.

She repaid this quite quickly to the council

from her own funding and her own assets.

She had used details of children who were in her care

to perpetrate a fraud,

and I think the sentence does send a message out to others

who may be thinking of doing the same thing.

Sarah Tolner ran two nurseries in the area -

the North London Montessori has since closed down,

and the other nursery has been sold on.

The parents were not aware that she had been submitting claim forms

and receiving funding for children

that were in attendance at the nursery.

In fact, the parents were actually paying the full cost.

I actually can't believe that she thought she'd get away with it.

I'm really pleased that she's now not...

You know, doesn't have a school any more,

and isn't in charge of young children.

The message from the corporate Anti Fraud Team to any would-be fraudsters

is that we will find you, and we will prosecute you.