So worried .Advice needed.Interview under caution

MacMickster

Personally, I would try to find/borrow the money to pay for a solicitor to attend the interview with you. You are clearly finding the situation extremely stressful and it would probably help to have someone with you who both knows the law, and can sort the wheat from the chaff to concentrate on relevant information from both sides of the interview.

You are only interviewed under caution when YOU are suspected of commiting an offence. I am concerned that the local authority may be indulging in a bit of a fishing exercise, trying to obtain information from you whist actually targeting someone else.

Whilst a solicitor may be relatively costly, the absence of appropriate support at this interview could cost you far more - not least in terms of added stress until the matter is resolved.

Good luck, whatever you decide to do.

schristine06

After reading and absorbing all of your kind advice i have decided that i will attend as it is my opportunity to put my side across and to prove my innocence. Its the pressure of being in a formal environment that worries me but i will try again today to try and a solicitor. Ive been advised that i need a solicitor that specialises in "criminal law" .That sounds awful.

RAS

Do you have a local advice centre? They may have a list of solcitors who do work on benefit cases.

schristine06

RAS wrote: »

Do you have a local advice centre? They may have a list of solcitors who do work on benefit cases.

Yes I called CAB yesterday for some advice but they unfortunately just said i needed to get advice from somewhere!!(Thats why i called them).
I called Community legal advice and was told that Benefit Fraud and Interviews Under Caution were not covered. Coming up against a lot of brick walls.

Will try calling Law Society to see if they can help.

It sounds a sthough my plan of taking along lots of evidence could possibly be in vain but how else can i prove my innocence?

MEM62

schristine06 wrote: »

It sounds a sthough my plan of taking along lots of evidence could possibly be in vain but how else can i prove my innocence?

Just a thought to take with you - in this country you do not have prove your innocence. You ARE innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof is on them, not you. Stay calm and state your case.

Morlock

schristine06 wrote: »

After reading and absorbing all of your kind advice i have decided that i will attend as it is my opportunity to put my side across and to prove my innocence.

You do not have to prove your innocence, they have to prove you're guilty.

schristine06 wrote: »

Its the pressure of being in a formal environment that worries me...

You can attend, not answer any questions, but provide a written statement instead. The interviewees should inform you of all of this, and your further rights to leave or remain silent etc, before the interview commences.

Loads of people have the 'authority' to 'summon' people to a PACE interview under caution, it is virtually meaningless.

dktreesea

MEM62 wrote: »

Just a thought to take with you - in this country you do not have prove your innocence. You ARE innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof is on them, not you. Stay calm and state your case.

So when you attend they need to state their allegation against you. Make sure you get the identity of everyone in the room. And ask them for the proof of their allegations. They say they have it in black and white. Say you want to see it. Since your daughter doesn't live with you, they need to prove they have "the proof in black and white". If they refuse to let you see this, ask how are you meant to believe them. Your daughter doesn't live with you and they apparently, can't prove otherwise, in spite of their assistance that they have proof in "black and white". That is likely to be the daughter's declaration to the HR department when she joined the council that her address was your address.

I don't think it is a big deal per se if your daughter gave her address as your address. That is presumably the address she wants all official correspondence to go to. Perhaps the HR department have asked her directly and she has confirmed your address is her address, thinking it's none of HR's business where she lives exactly?

We once had a visit from the police looking for one of my clients who used our address as his address for official papers and the like as he was usually on the move for work. The police said to me we should be very cautious whom we allow to use our address, as, for example, if they were involved in any kind of fraud, e.g. financial or insurance, this would impact on this address and make it harder to get reasonably priced insurance in the future. They didn't say the reason they were seeking my client and I didn't ask. I did think, though, that it was good advice, and nowadays no one uses our address except for the people living here.

Keep in mind there are two parties here potentially claiming housing benefit; yourself and the tenant of the place where your daughter actually lives. They may have interviewed the other person already. The bf's mother may be saying your daughter isn't a non dependent resident of her household but that she occasionally stays over with the son (i.e. your daughter's bf). One way or the other, your daughter is a non dependent resident of someone's household. If it turns out this is the bf's mother's house, it could be the bf's mother owes the council several years of non dependent deduction from her hb, that would have occurred had she declared the daughter's residence to the council.

And not providing the correct address to her car insurer is a big deal and could invalidate her insurance. The price of insurance can change depending on the residential address. If she wants her insurance to stay valid she should change that quickly.

dktreesea

Can I ask a general question? Say someone claims to live at your address and you claim housing benefit. Since they don't live with you obviously they are not on your claim. They make a declaration to the counciol that they live at your address. The council investigate, decide that is potential benefit fraud and invite you to an interview , under caution, because you haven't declared this non dependent "resident" of your household. Their proof is the declaration by the supposed resident. How exactly do you prove this person doesn't live with you? You don't have any documentation about them. You have no mail coming to your house for them. And you don't know where they really live.

I realise the burden of proof is on the council, but they have their "proof"; the declaration from the other party. What proof could you provide that the person doesn't live with you?

zzzLazyDaisy

I don't know if this helps, but this did in fact happen to me once. I was claiming the 25% discount as a single person, and someone reported me for having my brother living with me (they gave his name and his car registration number, but refused to give their own name).

Fortunately for me, because it was an anonymous report, the council wrote to me and asked me for my explanation before they took it any further (since they had no evidence at all, at that point, they couldn't really do anything else).

In fact my brother had stayed with me for two weeks when I was recovering from surgery. He paid rent and council tax in another area and he was also on the electoral roll at that address, so we were able to prove this. I phoned the council and gave them his name and address, they asked me to put it in writing, and that was the end of it. But in my case they had no evidence at all other than an anonymous report, and it was quick and easy to check the electoral roll at his address. I will say however, that the letter arrived on a Saturday, and gave me a sick and sleepless weekend until I was able to sort it out, so I do have a lot of sympathy for OP.

OP, my best advice to you is to go along to the interview, and explain things from your point of view. Don't refuse to answer questions (yes you can take that approach but the likelihood is that they will just escalate it to the next stage, and consider prosecution because so far the only evidence they have suggests that she was living with you and there is no evidence to the contrary). They have to investigate this, and they have to do it under caution because otherwise anything you say would be inadmissible if the case were to proceed - and at this stage they have no idea what the truth is, they only have the documents that your daughter signed to go on. Do also take all evidence with you that supports your case. On its own it is worthless, but taken in conjunction with your own verbal evidence, it will make them realise that there is a lot more investigation to do if they wish to take this further, and that will probably be sufficient to end the investigation as far as you are concerned.

An interview under caution IS scary to any law abiding citizen who has never had to deal with anything like this before. But you need to remember that these people are professionals, they do this for a living and they are not stupid. They can tell when someone is lying and when they are nervous but honest. It also is not worth them pursuing the matter unless they are pretty certain they have a good case.

In my view, the best thing you can do for yourself is to go along, co-operate with the investigation, and tell the truth. Answer only the questions you are asked, and don't try to interpret or guess at the facts. By that I mean, if they say 'why would your daughter say that?' If you don't know, then don't guess, just say you don't know and they would have to ask her.

schristine06

schristine06 wrote: »

Yes I called CAB yesterday for some advice but they unfortunately just said i needed to get advice from somewhere!!(Thats why i called them).
I called Community legal advice and was told that Benefit Fraud and Interviews Under Caution were not covered. Coming up against a lot of brick walls.

Will try calling Law Society to see if they can help.

It sounds a sthough my plan of taking along lots of evidence could possibly be in vain but how else can i prove my innocence?

I have asked my neighbour who moved in to the property in June 2011 to write a statement confirming that my daughter has not lived in my property all the time she has been my neighbour. Ive also asked my ex partner to write a statement confirming that she has not lived here for many years either. That's the only evidence I have and my verbal statement. They are more than welcome to check my bank statements to see that I've received no money from my daughter and my daughter has written a statement explaining why she used my address.
I will take everyone's advice and will only answer the questions that I can answer honestly and as stated will not try to offer explanations for my daughters actions or her BF mothers.
Thanks again to you all for your invaluable advice. It's been appreciate very much.