A fraudster who claimed £30,000 in benefits while she had 10 times that amount in the bank is to face a probe into her lifestyle.
Helen McNicol carried on claiming taxpayers' money in a variety of benefits after inheriting almost £300,000 and now faces being sent to jail.
A court heard the Crown is also seeking to claw back the stolen benefit money under the Proceeds of Crime Act.
McNicol, 41, will now be investigated over the nature of her spending and whether or not she was living a wealthy lifestyle while fraudulently claiming benefit.
Perth Sheriff Court heard how McNicol continued claiming benefits every week for more than two years while she had a fortune sitting in the bank.
McNicol has claimed more than £30,000 in housing benefit, income support and council tax since 2009.
But the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) began to investigate jobless McNicol after an anonymous tip-off about her wealth.
The probe discovered she was frequently moving large sums of cash between a string of bank accounts set up in her name.
Investigators established she had been claiming benefits after inheriting £97,000 from her father's estate after he died.
They also found out she was still claiming as recently as last year even though she knew she was about to receive a further £200,000 windfall. McNicol, of Crieff, admitted illicitly claiming £23,012.19 in income support between May 7, 2009 and September 9 last year.
She also admitted that between May 11, 2009 and September 18, 2011 she fraudulently claimed £5358.20 in housing benefit and £1651.97 in council tax.
McNicol admitted failing to give notification to the DWP that there had been a change in her financial circumstances. The con came to light when someone contacted the Government department in April last year to say McNicol had been the beneficiary of a large estate two years earlier.
A DWP source said: "The person revealed that she had inherited almost £100,000 from her father's estate in 2009. They also reported she was on the verge of getting another £200,000 and was an awful lot better off than she claimed to be.
"The records showed she had purported to be a struggling mother-of-two with total savings in the bank of just £200.
"It seemed to have slipped her mind she had £300,000 more in the bank than she had originally stated in her claim forms.
"There were a lot of different bank accounts and thousands of pounds were being taken out on regular occasions. I'm sure the average taxpayer would be disgusted." McNicol will be sentenced next month.
Fiscal depute Catherine Fraser told Perth Sheriff Court the Crown was also planning to seek confiscation of sums of money from McNicol.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article