A benefits fraudster who was posing as an ordinary housewife has been jailed after running a decade-long secret £270,000 scam.
Angela Lloyd, 58, and her husband Lee Phillips, 54, were arrested after a police raid on their semi-detached home.
Lloyd cried, "Oh my god", as she received her prison sentence at Liverpool Crown Court.
The mother-of-two used a deceased woman's identity, created fake medical conditions for her son, and worked under multiple pseudonyms whilst claiming carer's allowance.
Lloyd claimed nearly £170,000 worth of benefits alone in over a decade
Merseyside Police
She also helped Phillips falsely claim benefits worth £100,000, as reported by the Liverpool Echo.
Phillips also participated in the fraud, falsely claiming he required multiple daily carers while neighbours observed him washing his BMW and performing DJ sets at community events.
Lloyd received a two-year prison sentence after Liverpool Crown Court found she had fraudulently pocketed nearly £170,000 in benefits over a decade.
The court heard how Lloyd had claimed a total of £169,394.15, which she was not qualified for in housing benefits, carer's allowance and personal independence payments over the course of 11-and-a-half years.
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With Lloyd's assistance, Phillips was also found to have illegally claimed £100,980.71 through PIP, housing benefits, employment support allowance and council tax reductions since 2018.
Neighbours in the area revealed obvious clues that the couple were running a scam.
They watched Phillips "hobble" on his walking stick to meet his carers, shuffling along and holding onto his carer's car in the driveway.
However, locals were then left confused when Phillips was spotted at other times washing his BMW, driving, and even playing a DJ set for their street party during the late Queen's Diamond Jubilee.
Phillips was found to have illegally claimed £100,980.71
Merseyside Police
One neighbour told the Daily Mail: "I thought they were dodgy as he made a real show of not being able to walk whenever his carers were here.
"But the next thing I saw was him washing his BMW in the driveway - he seemed to be walking fine then."
Phillips was seen wiping back tears as he was jailed for 20 months for fraud by false representation and three counts of dishonestly failing to disclose information to make a gain.
Sentencing, Judge Simon Medland KC said: "Over an 11-year period, or more than that, you, Angela Lloyd, managed to defraud the public of just short of £170,000 and you, Lee Phillips, of about £100,000.
"In your case, Mr Phillips, over a five-year period, you had about £20,000 per year, which you defrauded from the public.
"For those who seek to defraud the public of scarce and valuable benefits which need to be directed to those who need them, not those who simply wish to have them for reasons of personal greed, that is a serious offence committed by each of you over a long period of time."
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