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Reality TV star cheated benefits

Lizzie Bardsley was paid £37,500 in benefits before the programme
Reality TV star Lizzie Bardsley has been found guilty of making false claims for benefits.

Bardsley, 32, who appeared on Channel Four's Wife Swap, denied receiving almost £3,800 from media work while claiming £37,500 a year in benefits.

The mother-of-eight, who said the cash went to charity and family, was found guilty by Rochdale magistrates.

Bardsley, of Hurstead Road, Milnrow, Rochdale, is due to be sentenced later on Tuesday.

Magistrates said Bardsley should have been aware the extra money amounted to a change in circumstances and declared the benefits to the Department of Work and Pensions.

Pay back

The money was earned from a topless photo shoot in a newspaper, celebrity magazine interviews and money for appearing on Wife Swap.

She will now have to pay back the £4,879 benefits overpayment, which will be taken from her current benefits.

Vincent Carr, prosecuting, also asked for £2,500 court costs.

After the verdict David Chad, defending Bardsley, said she intended to appeal against the court's decision.

He said Bardsley continues to maintain she did not keep any of the cash for her own financial gain but gave it away.



Bardsley had told the court she gave £800 to her sister, Jenny Hallisey.

She also said she had donated money to a cot death charity after losing a 13-week-old son, Timmy Jay, in 1997.

But the prosecution said the cash given away had effectively been subsidised from the public purse through her benefit.

Bardsley now works about four-and-a-half hours a week as a telephonist for a taxi firm in Rochdale.

She has now stopped claiming many of the benefits she was on but is still in receipt of working tax and child tax credit. bbc

She is nothing but a disgrace, given our town a horrible name now I often used to see her where I live (only about a 5-10 minute walk) from Hurstead Road. Loud mouth chavvy bitch!

There simply isn't room here to list the many enduring celebrities that have been created by reality TV. Why, there's Jade Goody, Brian wotsisname and er, the Scottish fella who won Fame Academy. And then there's Lizzy Bardsley, briefly famous thanks to Channel 4's Wife Swap and now infamous after she was found guilty today of benefit fraud at Rochdale magistrates' court. Bardsley pocketed £37,500 a year in state handouts - almost as much as Gareth Gates' total record sales last year - while making £3,800 for various TV appearances and newspaper and magazine articles. Bardsley claimed to have given the cash away to charity or her family, but magistrates have ordered her to pay back the £4,879 in overpayments. A sort of "benefit swap", if you will. mediaguardian

I did admire her utter foolish guile in saying that she did nothing wrong because she 'gave the money away'.
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Are people surprised though?

Doubtless someone contact the DWP, and asked them to investigate. It was clear that someone like her would not declare the money she got from the papers, even though millions knew about it!

Weird woman, I wonder what she'd think of me.
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Calrissian: Waiting for Stan

Madaline Wrote:



Just like Robin Hood well I didn't receive a penny

David Sneddon Mads

She got 80 hours community service as her "sentence" just under 5k for 80 hours work works out to about £60 an hour..good work if you can get it

She's taking the p*** out of us tax payers...lock her up!!

I had assumed that she would get a custodial sentence.

Crime DOES pay.

Rule 1' though...
if you're gonna fraud the system, make sure you file away anything as cash in a secure location.
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Yep, £60 an hour is well worth the effort of not disclosing extra income, ending up in court for a few hours, and having to do a little bit of pointless community service.

Bless, she must be laughing her fat ass off over this.
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Calrissian:

But the money hasn't bought her good looks has it?

What money ever buys good looks?

Well it worked for Anne Robinson

anyday now

Celebrity Injustic