A BENEFIT fraudster has been ordered to pay back more than £80,000.

Raj Ralhan, 79, of Turton Way, Slough, was ordered to pay £79,740.73 at Reading Crown Court, last Friday, June 3, following a conviction for housing benefit, council tax benefit and pension credit fraud in February.

Mrs Ralhan was caught when, despite claiming benefits for more than 13 years, she tried to buy her council house under the Right to Buy scheme using up to £36,000 of savings she hadn’t previously declared.

During Friday’s confiscation hearing, she was ordered to pay £59,422.02 to Slough Borough Council and £20,318.71 to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) within three months; a total of £79,740.73.

She was also ordered to pay the council’s costs of £3,000.

At the prosecution in February, the court heard that Mrs Ralhan had started claiming benefits in 2000 before applying to buy her property in 2013.

When questioned on where the money was coming from to buy the property, Mrs Ralhan gave details of savings. This raised a red flag at the council as the amount of savings was not compatible with the amount of benefits Mrs Ralhan was claiming and had never been declared in any of the benefit applications or subsequent follow ups.

After pleading guilty to three offences of fraud, Mrs Ralhan was sentenced to six weeks for each count, to run concurrently, suspended for 12 months.

Due to the right to buy regulations, Mrs Ralhan was still able to buy her council properly, complete with a 75 per cent right to buy discount – at the cut price rate of £31,500.

However, if Mrs Ralhan is unable to pay the confiscation amount without selling her property, her home is required to be offered to the council first with the discount being recovered on a sliding scale.

Joseph Holmes, assistant director of finance, said: “Mrs Ralhan continuously lied to the council and the DWP for more than a decade, hiding the savings from us before having the audacity to try and buy a property from the very people she was defrauding.”

If Mrs Ralhan does not return the money within the court-ordered timescale she could be sent to prison for a default term of 12 months.