Woman lies to CSA to cheat benefit

A Cardiff woman, Samantha Macatangay, lied to the child support agency naming a married man as the father of her child so she could claim housing benefit to pay her landlord. It was then revealed that her landlord was in fact the father of her child.

In Wales you can’t claim housing benefit if your landlord is related to you, hence her attempts to name a married man as the father of her child. Obviously as she was claiming benefit the CSA pursued this wanting to scrape their money from the father, revealing the truth about the father’s identity… her landlord.

Defence barrister Stephen Thomas said the couple were not obliged to take a DNA test to prove anything for the local authority but the jury unanimously convicted Macatangay of deceiving Rhondda Cynon Taf council.

In this case the CSA’s thoroughness actually worked, though I imagine the landlord (Christopher Phillpotts) will now come in for some severe treatment, even though he may have been completely innocent in all of this.

Samantha Macatangay narrowly escaped jail due to the fact that she had paid all of the money back.

via South Wales Echo.