Sussex wrote:
Model’s mother swindled £9,000 in bogus taxi claims from student loan firm
An international model’s mother swindled more than £9,000 in taxi fare claims out of the Student Loans Company while her daughter was studying for a law degree, a court heard. Leanne Shillingford, 23, was entitled to free taxi rides between her home in Kent and the University of Westminster because of a long-standing back condition. However, her mother, Tina, 49, submitted a string of fraudulent claims in her daughter’s name.
Shillingford, who was working as a receptionist for Fitzrovia-based law firm Magrath & Co, sent in dozens of claims for taxi rides when her daughter had actually been abroad, Croydon crown court heard. The claims totalled £9,744 between November 2012 and July 2014. Some were for actual rides and others involved false receipts.
Both mother and daughter were accused of fraud after Shillingford’s colleagues noticed a file of black taxi receipts on her work computer and suspected foul play in 2015. Sat next to her daughter in the dock, Shillingford pleaded guilty yesterday to the fraud as prosecutors accepted that Leanne had been unwittingly caught up in the scam. Shillingford’s lawyer, Barry Kogan, told the court: “When Leanne found out, rather rightly she was very upset, and it has put a strain on their relationship which is only now beginning to heal.”
Judge Alice Robinson sentenced Shillingford to 12 months in prison, suspended for 18 months, and 180 hours of community service, after hearing how she has spent years caring for infirm family members. “There is no doubt this is a serious case,” the judge said. “But I accept you have had a series of family crises and serious illnesses.”
The court heard Shillingford lost her job at Magrath & Co, but was taken on as a receptionist at a City hedge fund. She is now expecting to lose that job as a result of her conviction. Mr Kogan said Shillingford was facing “financial difficulties” while caring for her ailing mother and mother-in-law at the time of the scam, and is now “extremely remorseful and ashamed”.
He pleaded for a suspended sentence that would allow Shillingford to be at Leanne’s wedding in Colombia next month, when she is due to marry footballer Alexis Perez. He is believed to have met Leanne while playing in Spain, and now plays for a team in Mexico’s top division. Leanne moved to the United States in 2015, when the scam was discovered, to continue her studies in New York.
The court heard that Shillingford, from West Wickham in Kent, has paid back all the fraudulent claims.
I know some disabled students who pay their own TAXI fares and were unaware you could claim them off the Student Loans Company.
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