£2.4m benefit scam pensioner jailed

Jean Hutchinson ran her "sophisticated" £2.4 million empire from a "secret" room behind a hidden door at the back of her bedroom wardrobe.

For at least a decade the grey-haired 65-year-old, who boasted a luxurious apartment in one of London's most affluent areas, thought she was untouchable.

She spent hours each day systematically scouring newspapers for stories about people who had emigrated before "hijacking" their identities, thanks largely to lax personal information controls, and then, with the help of her mute cousin, claiming almost every available benefit. Much of their ill-gotten gains were then ploughed into property and shares.

London's Blackfriars Crown Court heard that investigators from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) eventually discovered the "highly profitable" scam and launched a five-month surveillance operation.

Hutchinson's home - above a children's charity shop she ran in Maida Vale, west London - was finally raided and initially left officials puzzled at the apparent lack of evidence.

Then, while searching her bedroom, one of them pulled aside a rack of clothes in a wardrobe and discovered a hidden doorway leading to a fully equipped "headquarters". Inside were thousands of documents, neatly filed and cross-referenced, which had been used to cheat the taxpayer out of a seven-figure fortune.

Investigators also discovered dozens of newspaper cuttings Hutchinson had collected about criminals she clearly idolised and filed in a folder marked "Heroes".

Shortly after her arrest, Hutchinson's cousin, Ralph Dale, 63, who was jailed for four years, was also detained. Both later pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the DWP and various local authorities between 1996 and 2006.

Another person, referred to as "Writer A" by a handwriting expert, has yet to be identified.