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Jersey Unreported Judgments |
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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> Jersey Unreported Judgments >> AG v Vieira [2019] JRC 226A (22 November 2019) URL: http://www.bailii.org/je/cases/UR/2019/2019_226A.html Cite as: [2019] JRC 226A |
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Before : |
T. J. Le Cocq., Esq., Bailiff, and Jurats Olsen and Austin-Vautier |
The Attorney General
-v-
Maria Teresa Vieira
Sentencing by the Inferior Number of the Royal Court, following a guilty plea to the following charge:
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1 count of: |
Knowingly furnishing false information or withholding material information with intent to obtain an award, contrary to Article 16(a) of the Income Support (Jersey) Law 2007 (Count 1). |
Age: 63.
Plea: Guilty.
Details of Offence:
The defendant failed to disclose that she had a property and bank accounts in Madeira. The failure meant that over approximately 9 years she received income support benefits of £63,459.45 to which she was not entitled. The property in Madeira had no mortgage and she allowed family members to live there rent free. Her Madeiran bank account contained approximately 14,500 euros.
She intentionally failed to disclose the assets on her 2011 application form, and again on the income support review form provided to her in 2013. It was not until 2019 when she was asked to provide official confirmation from the Portuguese Ministry of Finance that she finally admitted that she had lied. She stated in interview that she thought it was fair for her to keep the Madeiran property, and maintained that she should have been entitled to claim benefits in Jersey, notwithstanding her foreign assets, because she had worked in the Island and paid taxes.
Details of Mitigation:
Guilty plea, good character and has started making some repayment. She expressed an intention to sell her property in Madeira in order to fully repay the funds fraudulently obtained.
Previous Convictions:
None.
Conclusions:
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Count 1: |
24 months' imprisonment. |
Compensation order sought in the sum of £62,459.45 with 12 months' default sentence.
Costs order sought in the sum of £1,500.
Recommendation for Deportation is not sought.
Sentence and Observations of Court:
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Count 1: |
18 months' imprisonment. |
Total: 18 months' imprisonment.
Compensation order made in the sum of £62,459.45 to be paid within 12 months or 12 months imprisonment, consecutive, in default with liberty to apply.
Costs order made in the sum of £1,500 to be paid within twelve months.
No Deportation order made.
C. M. M. Yates, Crown Advocate.
Advocate G. N. A. Pearce for the Defendant.
JUDGMENT
THE BAILIFF:
1. You are to be sentenced today with regard to one count of knowingly furnishing false information or withholding material information with intent to obtain an award, contrary to the Income Support (Jersey) Law 2007.
2. As we have heard from the Crown the material information that you withheld was that you owned property including a house in Madeira. Given the references that have been submitted on your behalf and the fact that the Court is aware of what we accept to be your strong religious faith, we find it strange indeed, that you should have felt able to lie on many occasions in official forms, declaring that you owned no property anywhere else in the world, in order to obtain over an eight year period some £63,459.
3. It is clear that your purpose in making these false declarations was to obtain an income from the people of Jersey to which you were not entitled so that you could continue to live here even though by using your assets in Madeira, including the sale of your property there, you would have been able to sustain a life in Jersey for many years out of your own resources.
4. As the Court has said on many occasions, obtaining money in this way is a serious matter and is an affront to all those who make contributions to the fund and to those who are worse off than you, but who tell the truth and do not cheat.
5. We accept your remorse expressed by you through the Social Enquiry Report and through your counsel by reference to the letter that you have sent as entirely genuine. What is described as your prosocial lifestyle, your relationship with your church, your charity works and the contents of the references that we have read which describe a very positive character indeed, makes it all the more incomprehensible to the Court that you should have fallen so far below your apparent standards. That being said, you have the benefit of a substantial amount of money to which you were not entitled and as we have said you have lied on many occasions to secure that benefit, although we appreciate that after the first lie it might have been harder then to tell the truth.
6. In addition to the positive good character that your references disclose, you have the benefit of a guilty plea and that you have no previous convictions of any sort. We also note your health condition which gave rise to your first fraudulent application and we also note that the property in Madeira is up for sale and when that sale is achieved you intend to repay what you have taken in full.
7. We have asked ourselves whether, taking all of this information in the round we could consider that there were exceptional circumstances which would enable us to consider a non-custodial disposal of this matter, but we are clear in our minds that we find no such exceptional circumstances and it is inevitable, therefore, that you face a custodial sentence.
8. But, in our judgment we can take into account some of the exceptional features of the mitigation as it presents itself, including your very positive good character and positive contribution to society in the Island. And in the light of those circumstances and taking all of the available mitigation into account we think that we can reduce some of the conclusions of the Crown. Accordingly, you are sentenced to a period of 18 months' imprisonment.
9. We agree to the Crown's request for a Compensation Order in the sum of £62,459.45 and indeed that is not opposed by you through your counsel. This must be paid within 12 months and that period provides you with the opportunity to sell the property in Madeira. The default sentence is one of 12 months which will run consecutively from the expiry of the sentence that you will now serve. We do however, consider that you should have liberty to apply to the Court, should due to unforeseen circumstances it prove difficulty for you to sell the property in Madeira during that period. We would of course expect compelling evidence should that be an application that you needed to make.
10. We consider now the question of deportation. We do not need to consider this at length because it is clear that you fall squarely within the first part of the test set out in Camacho v AG [2007] JLR 462, but equally clearly the second part of the test is not passed, which is indeed the position of the Crown. We agree, and we do not make a recommendation for deportation. Your links to the Island, duration of your time here and the fact that you have children and grandchildren in the Island to us means that the current offending is not sufficient to outweigh yours and your family's Article 8 ECHR rights.
11. The Crown seeks an order for costs in the sum of £1,500. You do not oppose that through counsel and the Court accordingly makes that order. You will have 12 months, the same period in which to sell the property, in order to make that payment.
