Bride claimed £30,000 after pretending she was jilted
A BRIDE who swindled £30,000 in benefits by lying that she was jilted four weeks after her wedding day was caught when her husband posted on Facebook: “I love my wife”.
Emma Blackmore, 37, posed as a dumped single woman to fiddle benefits, saying her new husband had walked out on her after their honeymoon. Blackmore described new husband Wayne as a “traveller man” to officials and said the marriage was over after one month.
A court heard she kept up her bogus claims for the next four years while still living with her husband and having a child with him. The fraud was spotted when an investigation found Wayne, 35, had written on Facebook about his love for Blackmore. His account had pictures of their wedding and the couple enjoying married life together, going on holiday and to other weddings.
Swansea Crown Court heard the pair wed on June 16 2012, but Blackmore claimed to officials from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that they separated in July.
But in December that year, Wayne posted on Facebook: “I love my wife all the world she is the best xxx” Two years later, in 2014, he announced his wife’s pregnancy and posted: “Looks like we got a baby banger on the way.”
Further checks showed that Wayne’s wages were going into his wife’s bank account and his employers believed he lived at the same address as his wife. Nuhu Gobir, prosecuting, said: “Blackmore claimed she was a single woman living alone and received £29,569 in benefits she had not been entitled to.”
Blackmore, of Pembrokeshire, admitted six offences of fraud by failing to notify a change in her circumstances. She was jailed for 12 months, suspended for 18 months, and ordered to complete 20 days of a rehabilitation activity.
Recorder Greg Bull said he noted that Blackmore had maintained that “times were hard and money had been a struggle”. But he said that was true for many people. The court heard she was not in a position to repay any of the money.
After the case, a DWP spokesman said: “Only a small minority of people try to cheat the benefits system. But cases like this show how we are rooting out those who are stealing taxpayers’ money and diverting it away from the people who really need it.”