Cross Channel cheat! Woman with homes in London and Paris - both paid for by the tax-payer

 
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A dole cheat claimed more than £13,000 for a Notting Hill flat while receiving a further £45,000 in benefits for a home in Paris, a court heard.

Raja Aboutarik, helped herself to £9,548 in housing benefit and £3,504 in council tax benefit between May 2006 and May last year while occupying a one bedroom flat in Arundel Gardens worth more than £250,000.

But the Moroccan-born 56-year-old had also been receiving state benefits in France of around £800, West London Magistrates’ Court was told.

During the five year swindle she received just over £58,000 in benefits from Britain and France.

The benefit racket only came to an end when she was forced to admit she lived in her Paris home when the French authorities launched an investigation.

She “clearly and deliberately” provided false information in order to increase her living standards, said prosecutor Roger Hodkinson.

“It was clear that some of it was money other than for expenses on the property,” he told the court.

Aboutarik was receiving state benefits in France from 1999, and arrested on suspicion of benefit fraud in August 2011, the court heard.

District Judge James Henderson handed her an eight-week prison term, suspended for a year.

He told her: “This went on over a long period of time and you benefited to the extent of some £13,000, and so it seems to me I must give you a prison sentence.”

He said Aboutarik would not have to pay court costs because of her limited means but placed her under nightly curfew for the next three months.

Aboutarik, of Notting Hill, admitted three charges of falsely making a statement to obtain a benefit.

She is repaying Kensington and Chelsea Council at the rate of just £20 a week for the UK benefits.

Neighbours condemned the fraudster for “making them pay” for her theft.

Mary Cameron, a teacher who rents a flat in the same road, said: “Benefits are fine, but there are a lot of people living in mansions and getting housing for their eight children and abusing the system.

"That is clearly not on. I welcome diversity in this area, but that behaviour does make me angry, because essentially it is people like us who pay.”

Marie Dossantos, 23, a student renting an apartment opposite Aboutarik, said: “She should have been claiming from one country. She is taking money that belongs to other people.”

But speaking to the Standard, Aboutarik said she would remain living in the Notting Hill flat.

“I’m not a bad person, it was just a mistake. I don’t understand English law.”

She said her husband, Mohamed Mansour, had returned to Egypt two years ago, leaving her behind.

“He used to explain everything to me. Without him, I don’t understand. I’m going to stay in England and try to start my life here afresh,” she said.

She added: “I’m very sorry for what I have done.”

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