AN ELDERLY mum who swindled the taxpayer out of almost £600,000 in a huge benefits scam has been jailed.

Enid Bell, 67, who is also a grandmother, was the mastermind behind the scheme to steal from the Department of Work and Pensions and local councils.

Her daughter, mum-of-two Lorraine Bell, was her `right hand' in the scam, which went on for 12 years, and allowed the pair to buy EIGHT houses.

Yesterday Enid Bell, who admitted conspiracy to defraud, was sent to prison for four-and-a-half years and her daughter was sentenced to two years and three months after she also

 pleaded guilty to two charges of conspiracy at Preston Crown Court.

Three other family members -  Bell's husband George Bell, her son Terence Simms, and her brother Cecil Coley, also appeared in court and admitted dishonesty charges.

Bell used at least eight identities and different addresses to make bogus benefits claims.

Separate bank accounts were set up in false names in order to make it difficult for anyone to trace the payments back to her.

The court was told each of the identities, which included her maiden and former married names, had a number of benefit claims made against them including income support, Disability Living Allowance (DLA), pension credits, housing benefits and council tax benefit.

"Extremely well-organised"

David McLaughlin, prosecuting, said: "This was an extremely well organised and complex fraud. Enid Bell even managed to dupe seven different doctors in order for Disability Living Allowance to be paid."

The court heard she claimed almost £40,000 in income support, council tax and housing benefit from her home address in Stanley Road, Whalley Range, between 2000 and 2007.

At the height of the con she used the name Edna Davis to make claims for income support, pension credit, DLA, housing benefit and council tax benefit to the tune of £106,000.

She also made claims under the name of Edna Joyce Coley for £109,000, Joyce Simms £106,000, Elmay Joyce Rose Simms £58,000, Cynthia Bell £58,000, Maureen Simms £56,000, Ester Rose Davis £29,000 and Margaret Smith £23,000.

Bell, who sat through the court hearing in a wheelchair, was said to suffer from a variety of genuine illnesses and ailments including hypertension, angina, blackouts, stomach ulcer, nervous debility, claustrophobia, and suicidal tendencies. But the court was told that she calmly and methodically continued to defraud the DWP and other agencies by making fictitious claims.

Sentencing her, Judge Beverley Lunt said: "You are a thoroughly dishonest and greedy person. Deception is second nature to you.

"Grave concern"

"That you were able to steal from the taxpayer money for 12 years to a tune of well over £1/2m is a matter of grave concern. More so is that this was money intended to help vulnerable people in genuine need and distress."

The court heard Jamaican-born Bell was jailed for nine months for a benefit fraud in 1995 - and started up her dishonest enterprise again just days after being released.

Three years ago she appeared before magistrates in Blackpool on deception charges under another name, but the court had been unaware of the extent of her activities, and the case against her was dropped because of her ill health.

The court was told that Lorraine Bell, from Withington Road, Whalley Range, played a significant and essential role in helping her mother, mainly by filling in claim forms for her.

The judge said she accepted that she had first become involved in the scheme at an impressionable age, but told her: "It is difficult to understand why you didn't say no - particularly in the years that followed."

Cecil Coley, 69, of Shrewsbury Street, Whalley Range, who pleaded guilty to a charge of false accounting, was given a 16-week jail sentence suspended for a year.

The judge said he had played the role of the silent partner, by allowing his address to be used for fraudulent claims, and gained nothing personally from the conspiracy.

George Bell, 71, was given a conditional discharge for three years for making a false pension credit claim of £1,635, and Enid Bell's son Terence Simms, 43, of Shrewsbury Street, Whalley Range, was given a 30-week sentence suspended for two years for falsely claiming Jobseeker's allowance of £8,400 over a period of four years.