A NORTH Yorkshire couple have been issued with confiscation orders totalling more than £220,000 for benefit fraud stretching back almost a decade.
Mariola Kostrzewa, of Dove Cottage, Wistow Road, Selby, will have to serve 27 months in prison unless she pays £166,831.54, while her husband Janusz Kostrzewa, of the same address, has been ordered to pay £62,826.36 or go to jail for 18 months.
The confiscation orders were made after the pair had admitted dishonestly making false statements to Selby District Council and the Department for Work and Pensions to obtain benefits dating back to 2003, after tip-offs about the couple’s lifestyle. An investigation showed income from a business they ran called The Iron Lady had not been declared, and they received council tax benefit, income support and Jobseekers Allowance they were not entitled to.
York Crown Court previously gave Mariola Kostrzewa a 12-month prison sentence suspended for two years and 300 hours’ unpaid work, with her husband sentenced to eight months’ imprisonment, also suspended for two years, and ordered to do 200 hours’ unpaid work.
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