Give benefit cheats harsher sentences

IN the media last weekend: benefit fraud trebles to £6.3 billionn – benefit cheats are defrauding a record £120 million in handouts every week from the taxpayer.

But there were just 622 prosecutions and only 15 people were jailed.

One cheat, a mother of eight, was given a suspended prison sentence after she was found to have pocketed £100,000 in benefits for relatives living in Pakistan and was ordered to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work.

Most of the cheats of these large amounts of money got suspended sentences. Why?

Mike Hotter, West Hallam