Fraudster made fortune from soft-touch Britain - EXPRESS COMMENT
IF benefits cheat Tania Amisi had put her skills to better use she could be running a multi-national corporation.
BBC
Instead this pregnant mother-of-three, who came to Britain from the Congo as an asylum seeker, has spent years running rings round the authorities with a series of complex frauds which have paid for luxury flats, five-star hotels, holidays and designer handbags and dresses.
She has used any number of aliases to acquire dodgy credit cards and two passports. And all the time she has been supported by the taxpayer.
She has now been sent to jail for four years for 21 offences and the Department for Work and Pensions is seeking a court order to reclaim the money she stole. Though considering how long it took to get Ms Amisi to court the chances of the DWP speedily recouping its losses seem slim.
Was it this woman’s sheer tenacity and brass neck that allowed her to pursue her criminal career so successfully or is it a fault in the benefits system itself which allowed such flagrant behaviour to go unchecked for so long?
“This was not a case of a person in dire financial straits submitting to temptation and making fraudulent claims to get by,” said Judge Michael Grieve. Indeed not. Tania Amisi has been the recipient of this country’s benevolence towards asylum seekers and has taken outrageous advantage. But soft-touch Britain must take some of the blame.
——————————————————————
Theresa May shows true grit
GETTY
THE Conservatives have pulled ahead in the polls for the first time since the General Election.
But one hardly needs the polls to sense that Mrs May’s courageous perseverance has paid off. She has won the admiration of the public who approve of her doggedness and her determination to get the country back on track.
What’s more her lead over Labour has risen sharply. In the difficult weeks following the election it looked as though Corbyn-mania was a real force but now the Labour Party is floundering as badly as ever, still with no coherent policy over Brexit.
Many thought the Prime Minister would be gone by Christmas. But in her refusal to give up Mrs May has shown her grit and her patriotism.
——————————————————————
The wonder of Woolies…
NC
A SET of fairy lights bought in Woolworths in 1969 are still shining brightly without the need of a single new bulb.
For many families the re-emergence of the tree lights each year is part of a traditional Christmas.
If only they were all so reliable as the ones from Woolies.
