DLA Fraud Woman Filmed On Water Slide
August 22, 2011
A Cardiff woman has admitted claiming £25,000 worth of benefits after pretending to be severely disabled.
Annunziatina Attanasio, 51, claimed the highest rate of mobility and care for five years before she was caught.
She was filmed walking normally, as well as going down a water slide.
She claimed an amount which, says the Department for Work and Pensions, is meant for “people who are barely able to walk and need round-the-clock care”. She will be sentenced on 16 September.
Donna James, DWP’s fraud manager for Cardiff and Newport, warned potential fraudsters: “You will be caught.”
She added: “We have a realm of investigative techniques that we are able to use and we put those to our best use to bring all these sort of cases before the court.”
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Same Difference 
I’m glad to know she admitted her guilt – saving the prosecution some money.
But it should not change how she is dealt with. Theft is theft.
If she’s not really disabled then jail should be a doddle?
The worry is she’ll only learn of other ways to cheat and drain the system from other theives.
Five years, over twenty grand, maybe the use of a motability car – and surely resources from the council that she didn’t need; OT equipment, bus pass, disabled badge, radar key….
Did she manage to procure favourable housing – disabled adapted bungalow somewhere quiet? How was it she was granted her claim in the first place, if she wasn’t genuinely disabled? There are alot of doctors that have alot to answer for also.
Now for my little moan…
It took me four years to get the MRI that proved I have inherited Degenerative Spine Disease. It took me a further year to get DLA and when I sent my claim, as I could not stand in a post office queue to send by recorded delivery, they said it was late and diddled me out of £900. I have only a two year award which means I have had to continue to use and be thrown around in public transport and mini-cabs to get about. I’ve finally got a date for a course of therapy for treatment of my Hypermobility, something which my incompetent ex-GP’s denied I have, without even testing me.
Why is it, when I was fit and well and paying tax did I not think to screw the state for my living – instead of becoming gradually more ill and less priviledged, losing my social status and self-esteem from being unable to work – while people like the female in question get away with robbery? She should feel the full weight of the law, in my opinion.
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I lived next door to tina for over 10 years and although she is clearly guilty she was a very nice woman and a good mum to her two kids.
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