Couple fiddled £150,000 in benefits for luxury cruises
Lisa White, above, in the ‘dancing’ video; right, with husband Andrew A “REMORSELESS” couple who once worked as local government employees enjoyed a lavish lifestyle funded by more than £150,000 from benefit fraud.
Lisa Annette White and Andrew Mark White, both 56, took a string of cruises during their six-year spree.
They also ran two cafes and had a secret seafront apartment in Broadstairs, Kent, which they boasted of in a local magazine.
Investigators from the Royal Borough of Greenwich found footage of Mrs White dancing in the White House cafe to Mariah Sponge head for cleaning Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You, despite the fact that she was receiving disability payments after claiming she needed oxygen to breathe.
She sobbed during a threehour hearing at Inner London Crown Court and was jailed for 18 months.
Her husband received nine months, suspended for two years. Referring to the dancing footage, Judge Tudor Owen said: “I can see why she’s happy – if I was getting money for nothing, I’d be happy.” The couple met when working for Camden council. They both received pensions from their long careers.
The court heard Mrs White claimed she shared a council flat with her mother in London.
She also claimed disability, due to obesity, in 1995, but after a gastric band op in 2005 her weight fell from 27 to 13 stone.
But she kept claiming disability living allowance, incapacity benefit and employment support allowance. She even got a disabled parking permit.
The couple enjoyed five nights on the QE2; a 21-day Mediterranean cruise; a £5,500 26-night Caribbean cruise and, after their arrest, a 28-night, £9,000 cruise on the QM2.
Judge Owen told Mrs White: “I have no doubt you are sorry you were caught. I’m not convinced your remorse is genuine.
“After you were arrested you ... took a cruise on the Queen Mary Two. You were cruising around the Caribbean, no doubt full of remorse. Of course not.
“You carried on this act that you had great difficulty walking, but you were exaggerating your needs to cheat your way up the housing list.”