A decade of deception saw her spout of string a untruths which included using a dead woman’s identity
Angela Lloyd(Image: Merseyside Police)
A mum cried “oh my god” as a web of lies resulted in her and her husband being jailed. Angela Lloyd fraudulently pocketed nearly £170,000 during a decade of deception which saw her spout a string of untruths regarding her job at Tesco, a caravan which never existed and fake medical conditions which she wrongly claimed her teenage son suffered from.
The part-time care worker also concocted pseudonyms and used a dead woman’s identity as part of a con which saw her partner Lee Phillips net ill-gotten gains amounting to a further £100,000. A judge told them yesterday that they had acted “for reasons of personal greed” while carrying out a “substantial and determined fraud on the public purse”.
Liverpool Crown Court heard on Tuesday afternoon that Lloyd claimed a total of £169,394.15 which she was not entitled to in housing benefit, personal independence payments and carers allowance over the span of 11-and-a-half years. Phillips meanwhile helped himself to £100.980.71 in false claims for employment support allowance, PIP, housing benefit and council tax reduction over a period of around five-and-a-half years from April 2018 onwards.
Olivia Beesley, prosecuting, described how Lloyd’s con first began in February 2012, when she started to claim housing benefits from West Lancashire Borough Council in relation to a caravan on a site at a “fictitious address” of Riverside Walk in Southport. The 58-year-old even created a false tenancy agreement for the “entirely fictitious” caravan, enabling her to swindle £71,597.16 from the local authority.
Lloyd then began making fraudulent claims in respect of Phillips to St Helens Borough Council in 2018. This saw her incorrectly state that her husband required “multiple daily carers to attend to his needs” and used his sister Zoe Phillips’ birth certificate to pose as the sibling, whom she falsely maintained was his main carer.
She also claimed that she was not in employment due to caring commitments for her co-defendant, which she said amounted to 35 hours per week. However, she was in fact working for care company Hand in Hand Homecare under the pseudonym Wendy Lloyd and at a Tesco store using the name Angela Valentine.
This saw her benefit to the tune of £73,085.29 in relation to costs for fictitious carers, as well as £753.40 in carers allowance. From January 2022, Lloyd then began to “invent false medical condition for her son” and stated that he had a carer called Joyce Bibby, a woman who had died before the claim was initiated.
As a result, she falsely claimed £9,922.95 in disability living allowance overpayments and personal independence payments of £508.75 in relation to the then 15-year-old boy. She meanwhile benefited from £13,526.70 of PIP “on the grounds that she needed carers to help with her daily care due to her health conditions”, again naming the deceased Ms Bibby as her social worker.
Phillips also failed to disclose to the council that Lloyd had moved into his home on Birch Gardens in St Helens during 2018, enabling him to continue to claim £13,633.67 in housing benefits and £2,246.94 in council tax reductions on the false basis that he was living alone. The 54-year-old was further said to have “exaggerated his medical conditions, caring needs and capabilities”, including maintaining that he was “unable to do anything for himself”, in order to pocket PIP overpayments of £32,073.88.
Having declared himself unfit for work and claimed to have no other income, overlooking his wife’s wages, he falsely gained a further £51,397.13 in employment support allowance. Phillips later alleged that Lloyd “had completed the form for him and had just asked him to sign it”.
Lee Phillips(Image: Merseyside Police)
His counsel Jim Smith said on his behalf: “It is right to say that, since the figures in relation to overpayments have been calculated, the defendant has been repaying through Universal Credit deductions. Clearly, he has a substantial amount to repay.
“The defendant has a complex recent history of mental health and physical disabilities. He suffers from a functional neurological disorder. He has a pacemaker with a defibrillator fitted. He is a type two diabetic. He suffers from kidney failure, anxiety and depression.
“He is in receipt of substantial medication to treat those conditions and is presently seen by a number of carers who attend to his medication and mobility issues. He appears in court today in a wheelchair.
“It is respectfully submitted that the defendant would be highly vulnerable in a custodial setting. I would respectfully submit that your honour can draw back from that sanction.
“He has no previous like convictions. His original benefits were legitimate from the outset and became illegitimate following a failure to notify a change of circumstances following involvement with the co-defendant in his life. Clearly, there are vulnerability issues in his case.”
Lloyd’s criminal record show a series of previous entries for dishonesty offences and theft dating back to the 1980s, although her last appearance came in 2012. Jeremy Rawson, defending, told the court: “Her record, I accept, does not assist her, but it is of some age.
“She accepts full responsibility for what she has done and accepts in her letter to your honour that she does have to be punished for that. She has personal mitigation. She continues in employment. She is making some repayments. She is working in the caring profession. She has caring responsibilities with her son.”
Lloyd admitted a total of seven counts of fraud by false representation. She burst into tears and cried “oh my god” as she was locked up for two years.
Angela Lloyd(Image: Merseyside Police)
Phillips pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation and three counts of dishonestly failing to disclose information to make a gain. He too was seen wiping tears away with a tissue as he was locked up for 20 months.
Sentencing, Judge Simon Medland KC said: “You have both pleaded guilty to a substantial and determined fraud on the public purse. You invented fictitious addresses, used false names, used a dead person’s identification and lied about the extent of [your son’s] illness.
“The upshot of that is, over an 11-year period, or more than that, you, Angela Lloyd, managed to defraud the public of just short of £170,000 and you, Lee Phillips, of about £100,000. In your case, Mr Phillips, over a five-year period, you had about £20,000 per year which you defrauded from the public. In your case, Ms Lloyd, it was just short of £15,000 per year which you defrauded the public by.
“In your case, Mr Phillips, you have nothing relevant by way of antecedents, and the amount that you defrauded is substantially less than that of your co-defendant. In your case, Ms Lloyd, for over 40 years, you have been committing offences of dishonesty.
“I acknowledge that your risk of reoffending may be low and that you do not present a threat to the public at large, but I have to consider punishment and deterrent.
“For those who seek to defraud the public of scarce and valuable benefits which need to be directed to those who need them, not those who simply wish to have them for reasons of personal greed, that is a serious offence committed by each of you over a long period of time.”