Industry news roundup: week ended 9 Feb 2015:
Looking for a crash course to blow £50,000 in personal injury compensation fast? Just follow pensioner Angela Nangle’s lead and you’ll be right as rain.
You heard that right – a 62 year old woman from Brighton spent some £50,000 she had been awarded after an accident claim in order to not have to declare the money as income and risk losing her housing benefit. The story came to light in Brighton Magistrates’ Court recently after it was revealed Nangle took out some £3,000 a day from her trust fund between May 27 and June 29 of 2012.
The story begins in 2009 when she filed notice that she would be receiving a personal injury compensation award that exceeded £16,000. That’s the minimum that would see her losing her housing benefit – and that’s when she placed it in a trust fund so the cash couldn’t be taken into account. However something changed three years later when she didn’t declare any money in the account on a review form, and that sparked an investigation into the matter.
Finally the truth came out recently in court, with Nangle admitting that she had been taking the money out in cash instead of depositing it in a bank account. She knew that if there was any sort of paper trail she’d end up having to list it on a housing benefit claim. The 62 year old instead decided to blow the money any way she could – and I mean any way she could. I’m talking fine dining, expensive wine, and male companionship. That’s right: the pensioner was buying the company of male escorts with her compensation award.
Her reason for doing so? The money was too much trouble to manage, so she decided to get rid of it.
You know if she truly wanted to get rid of her cash I would have been more than happy to take the money off her hands. I could use a new car or two, or maybe a nice sailing yacht. Honestly what was this woman thinking? At any rate I hope she had a good time blowing all that cash like that. I know I would have.