A man who falsely claimed to be paralysed for 17 years to claim £1m in benefits has been jailed for 11 years.
Emmanuel Bay, 68, said he needed 24-hour care but used the money to build up a property portfolio worth more than £1m with his wife Nancy Bay Sloane.
Sentencing at Inner London Crown Court, Judge Michael Wood KC branded Bay the “most dishonest man” he had met.
The judge described Bay Sloane as a “Jekyll and Hyde” character as she was jailed for four and a half years.
Lambeth Council became suspicious when an occupational therapist noticed the lift in Bay’s building would not fit a wheelchair, which he claimed to use to reach his second-floor flat.
Bay told the council he had become bedbound following a car accident in 1997 where he had suffered a serious head injury, which caused memory loss.
Between 1999 and 2016, he was paid £300,000 from the government’s independent living fund, which is meant to help disabled people manage their condition.
He also falsely claimed £90,482 in disability living allowance, £70,017 in incapacity benefit and £12,568 in living cost support from the Department for Work and Pensions.
Bay received a further £10,611 in Universal Credit between 2018 and 2019, on top of £700 support from Lambeth Council for housing costs.
‘Plundering from state’
Bay Sloane, also 68, falsely claimed she had been renting council property, 74 Arlington Lodge in Brixton, since 1985 to get a right to buy discount of £38,000 on the flat when she bought it in 2001 for just £37,000.
The couple kept a room in the two-bed property for Bay to use when he was visited by council employees carrying out checks.
Officials became suspicious Bay was lying about his condition during a series of visits to the Arlington Lodge property in 2015.
During one visit his supposed carer, Bruno Matudi, 60, used a bear hug to lift Bay when he was asked to show how he would carry him around.
Matudi was handed two suspended sentences totalling 24 months and ordered to do 100 hours of unpaid work.
The three defendants were previously found guilty of offences under the Theft Act, Fraud Act and Forgery and Counterfeiting Act on 6 March.
Mr Wood KC said: “You showed not a shadow of remorse. You are an inveterate liar and I have quite honestly not a clue who you really are.
“In general terms, all three of you were convicted on the most overwhelming evidence of extraordinarily mean and dishonest offences, plundering whatever you could from the state to your own advantage.”
Bay and Bay Sloane have been served with deportation orders.
- By Harry Low & Robert Firth
- BBC News & Local Democracy Reporting Service
