Benefits cheat claimed while she was in Big Brother house
A FORMER reality TV contestant has avoided jail after it emerged she was claiming housing benefit while living in the Big Brother house.
Sally Pryzbeck, 32, moved out of her apartment in Wallasey, Wirral, to go on the July 2013 series of the Channel Five programme.
The glamour model, who appeared on the show under the pseudonym Sallie Axl, never returned to the property but continued to claim housing benefit until October 2015.
She had been paid more than £12,300 for the flat from the public purse, Birkenhead Magistrates’ Court was told.
In reality, she had been living with her mother, whose home she moved into when she was kicked out of Big Brother.
Pryzbeck told investigators from the Department of Work and Pensions that her head had been ‘in a whirl’ following her TV appearance.
She said she had not declared her change in circumstances because she had separated from her partner and was a single parent on a low income.
The plastic surgery addict pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing to dishonestly failing to notify a change of circumstances affecting entitlement to social security benefit.
District Judge Nicholas Sanders told Pryzbeck that she had cheated the taxpayer and ‘should be ashamed’.
He ordered her to pay back the benefit in full and also sentenced her to 200 hours of unpaid work. Pryzbeck must also pay court costs and a £80 victim surcharge.
Just last week the tattooed mother- of-two was in America undergoing her latest round of plastic surgery – an operation to have heel implants to make her taller. It was undertaken by doctors for another reality TV show she appears in, called Botched.
In a video posted from her hospital bed, she attacked those criticising her decision to add several inches to her 5ft 2in frame, saying: ‘Next year everyone will be getting foot implants. Everyone wants to be taller. Not everyone, just short people. So just shut up all the haters.’
Although the procedure, which is known as arthroplasty and uses an artificial joint attached to the bone to increase height, was only carried out on Friday, Pryzbeck was back in the UK to appear before the judge yesterday.
Pryzbeck was the first Big Brother housemate to be kicked out of the 2013 series. Viewers took against her confrontational nature and she left the house brandishing her middle finger to the booing crowd.
More recently she was criticised for posting pictures of her baby daughter eating nacho crisps, drinking fizzy drinks and even wearing a face mask.
Leanne Kennedy, a fraud spe-
‘You should be ashamed’
cialist at Mersey Cheshire Crown Prosecution Service, said Pryzbeck had claimed a ‘substantial amount’ that she wasn’t entitled to.
‘Ms Pryzbeck said she hadn’t done this intentionally. She told investigators that she had regained control over her financial affairs now – but that’s all a bit late.
‘The public purse is under considerable pressure. When people cheat the system in this way, they are taking money away from the people that genuinely need the help and support of the State.
‘Let this be a lesson to benefits cheats everywhere. What you are doing is not fair and you won’t get away with it.’