Food handout lies of five-star benefit cheat
Beautician Carina Reid claimed she barely survived on a hand-tomouth existence – while banking thousands and living it up at luxury holiday spots
JUDGING by her jet-set lifestyle – a gold-plated whirl of champagne, lobster, five-star hotels and exotic holidays around the world – Carina Reid was the girl who had everything. But as she starts a three-year prison sentence for benefit fraud, the question is where did she get it all from?
She falsely claimed housing and council tax benefits to the tune of £50,000 but that doesn’t explain how she funded her extravagant life – or how she came to have £180,000 stashed away in 19 bank accounts, owned a flat on the King’s Road, Chelsea, and bought property in Dubai.
The rise and fall of the 32-yearold Essex beautician, who styled herself a “celebrity medical aesthetician” while also claiming she was so poor she had to accept food parcels from a mosque, is an intriguing story of decadence and deceit. Tax experts say it may never be possible to know exactly what she is worth or how she made her wealth.
Her style in clothes, illustrated vividly in pictures posted on her Facebook page, demonstrates that she was a girl who loved a good time. At a fashion event in London she wears a clinging red dress split daringly high; in another snap that looks like it was taken in a classy hotel she wears a lacy crop top with matching mini-skirt; in Dubai she poses in a short skirt as she lays back across the bonnet of a £300,000 Rolls-Royce Phantom; by the poolside of a luxury hotel in an unnamed foreign resort she wears a silver bikini with high-heeled red lace-up shoes and full make-up.
BUT then you’d expect a beautician to always look her best. And she does – in Hong Kong, Dubai, Spain, Portugal, France, Switzerland, Morocco, Italy, Malta and Cyprus. At home she posts pictures of herself sipping a cocktail in classy Scott’s of Mayfair, having afternoon tea at Harrods, dining at the swish Dorchester Hotel in Park Lane.
She constantly tells her Facebook followers about her globetrotting exploits, tagging herself at the Cannes Film Festival in the South of France, sipping cocktails in Cyprus and at a rooftop pool in Lisbon. She tags herself at Harrods saying: “Drinking champagne. It’s a hard life.” And at a restaurant in Malta, captioned: “Lobster mmm.”
In January last year Reid posted pictures of herself enjoying a ski trip in pricey Davos, Switzerland. Replying to a friend’s comment she said: “It’s bloody hard and I’m HIGH LIFE: She took the alias Cara Delmonte and lived a lavish lifestyle that she posted all over Facebook. She will continue to be housed at taxpayers’ expense – in prison aching but surviving.” pretty nicely, thank you.
When you’re fiddling £50,000 from the council you would think you’d have the brains to keep quiet about how you’re spending it but in her case brains and beauty don’t go hand in hand. Reid’s idea of secrecy was to have her Facebook page under the pseudonym of Cara Delmonte – leading to speculation she got the name from the man from Del Monte in the TV adverts who always said yes.
She claimed in court that many of her holidays were paid for by men friends or were for business training. Which business she didn’t specify. Her beauty company Enhance Medi Spa is based near an industrial estate in Wandsworth, south-west London, a world away from her off-duty haunts such as the imposing Burj Al Arab in Dubai, supposedly the world’s only sevenstar hotel.
A profile of Reid on the Enhance website says she is a “senior medical aesthetician” with qualifications from St Thomas’ Hospital, London, and the Anaheim Medical Centre in Surviving Los Angeles. The site says she has “worked with a wide range of clientele, from VIP film stars, TV and radio presenters as well as on magazine shoots and celebrity events”.
She once also appeared on an obscure satellite TV channel in a 35-minute programme in which she “shared her personal journey” of beauty and body transformation.
On a talent site she once listed herself as a 5ft 5in, 8st model with long hair, slim build and black eyes. She claimed to have worked for Men & Motors, a now defunct racy satellite channel.
It’s impossible to discover what the reality is because Reid occupies a fantasy world of lies and halftruths that finally came crashing down at Isleworth Crown Court in west London.
The shocked court heard how Reid first claimed benefits from Kensington and Chelsea council in 2009, telling them that she earned a very low income from Enhance, of which she is described as managing director. When council investigators became suspicious she told them she had no savings and had taken no holidays between 2009 and 2014. But the Facebook pictures told a different story and it was discovered that she bought a flat on the King’s Road, one of London’s most expensive areas, putting down a deposit of £20,000 and obtaining a mortgage for the rest. On the mortgage application she declared her supposedly true earnings from Enhance and showed her tax returns which revealed it was a highly successful company. Not only that, she had also sent £116,000 abroad in 2013 and 2014 to acquire property in Dubai. Her LinkedIn profile on the business networking website indicated her aim was to expand her business to Dubai and LA – not bad for someone who trained as a young beautician at Colchester Institute. Eight of the nine dishonesty charges she faced in court related to her failure to declare savings of £180,000 in a mass of bank accounts. The court was told her false statements to the council saw her overpaid £51,110, made up of £48,395 housing benefits, £2,174 council tax benefits and a £541 council tax reduction. None of the money has been repaid and Reid told the court she didn’t believe she had an extravagant lifestyle despite what her social media profile might have suggested. She also insisted that she had always been truthful in her tax affairs.
REID’S fraud was described by Judge Marks Moore as “sophisticated”, “premeditated” and designed to fund her designer lifestyle. After the case council leader Nicholas PagetBrown said: “Money intended for those in greatest need was instead dishonestly used by Carina Reid to fund a lavish lifestyle at taxpayers’ expense. I am very pleased that following our investigation, which uncovered her real circumstances, the court has handed down this custodial sentence.”
At a coffee shop across the road from Enhance’s premises, barista Andreja Oblak said: “I can’t believe it. She always seemed so polite and sophisticated. I can’t believe she was such a scammer, ripping us all off to pay for her lifestyle.”
A neighbour at her block on the King’s Road said: “It’s a shock. We barely saw her because of her jetset lifestyle. She was always partying and just gave the impression of being very successful.”
Yes, she was successful at conning people and enjoying an extravagant life at honest taxpayers’ expense. But now the party’s over.