SCHOLEFIELD: MILLIONAIRE SIBLINGS ACCUSED OF BENEFIT CON SPARED RETRIAL BECAUSE OF ILL HEALTH

An elderly brother and sister accused of making £130,000 of false benefit claims while keeping their £4million fortune secret have walked free.

Judge Peter Clarke QC said it would be ‘unfair’ to retry Shefali Scholefield, 68, and 73-year-old Raymond Martin who are ills and living in squalor.

The value of Scholefield’s £3.5million four-bedroomed detached Surrey property has dropped to £2million after being left ‘derelict and deserted’, and the pair live in a shabby flat in north London, Blackfriars Crown Court heard.

Investigators have also impounded £46,000 cash the Indian-born pair hid under a bed as police closed in on them.

The couple’s first trial was aborted after Scholefield slipped on ice on her doorstep and broke her hip.

As Judge Clarke staid the 28-count indictment spanning 1991 to 2006, he said circumstances have worsened since their first trial and added that he now has ‘deep misgivings’ about continuing.

After hearing the news Martin, who is blind and suffering with advanced diabetes amongst other things, and Scholefield, who has a deformed spine and is recovering from a broken hip, were helped in turn to a waiting taxi in a wheelchair by their barristers.

The brother and sister fell out with a string of lawyers and ended up representing themselves at their first trial in December last year.

They were allowed to sit in the well of the court but would simply shout out to interrupt prosecution evidence during the trial.

They turned up to court at 11am or later, and at one point Martin, who ate his lunch in court, had his bail withdrawn for repeated breaches.

Scholefield also repeatedly snapped at the judge and accused him of ‘killing me’.

Outlining the chronology the judge said: ‘Listings before this court first took place on 1 June 2009.

‘I was first appraised of the case in 2010.

‘It was quite clear the defendants were not in the very best of health but I was at that time satisfied that there was no problem with the conduct of a fair trial.

‘The defendants were given the opportunity of challenging the evidence.

‘They may have been ill-advised by themselves to be unrepresented but nonetheless the jury were understanding the issues and were trying the matters fairly.’

The judge continued: ‘On 6 December, a Monday, the jury and I arrived and were told that Mrs Scholefield had fallen on the ice outside the building on the Friday evening and broken her hip.

‘She was hospitalised for quite a period of time.

‘It meant of course, that her brother was effectively having to fend for himself.

‘That left the court in the unenviable position of having to look after his interests given that he had no legal representation.

‘I tried to grant him bail over Christmas and New Year, asking him for names of people who could act as sureties but one he mentioned had not seen him for something like seven years.

‘He therefore had to be lodged in prison.

‘Mrs Scholefield was discharged from hospital but was obviously not in a good state.

‘By late winter they were living together again.’

They eventually found legal representation but giving their solicitor instructions proved difficult, said the judge, when the lawyer refused to return to the ‘squalid’ environment.

Despite these difficulties second trial date had been set for the beginning of this month.

But it quickly became clear the siblings literally would not come without a fight.

When they predictably did not turn up to court and refused to answer their door, police had to batter it down.

And when one officer tried to arrest Scholefield, she tried to attack him, punching him ‘feebly’ on his chest.

The judge said Martin’s diabetes has advanced along with his glaucoma and other debilitating complaints including chronic diarrhoea.

The judge said: ‘He pays relatively scant attention to the criminal proceedings.

‘Indeed he has paid more attention to his luncheon which he sits in court eating.’

Within minutes of turning up to court, Martin was admitted to hospital with diabetic complications.

Tom Wainright, defending Scholefield, and Martin’s barrister Rebecca Hill, made applications for a stay on the basis that continuing the case would breach of their human rights.

Mr Wainright also accused prosecutors of an abuse of process.

The court’s list office offered a third trial date in February but Judge Clarke said: ‘For a multiplicity of reasons I am staying these proceedings because I am concerned about going any further with a criminal trial.

‘It seems to me, the question is, is it fair to have a trial and would it be fair in February next year.

‘I am confessing to deep misgivings about proceeding with such a trial.

‘No-one has abused anyone in this case apart from Mrs Scholefield abusing me.

‘The prosecution have acted entirely fairly.

‘I have serious doubts as to whether Mr Martin would be fit to stand trial in the New Year.

‘That doesn’t mean you are acquitted.

‘You have not been found not guilty.

‘That can only be done by no evidence being offered or by a jury.

‘But you are no longer being prosecuted in this matter.

‘It seems to me that if defendants can be seen to be enjoying the perks of crime that is a factor that would tend to militate strongly against any stay.

‘Mrs Scholefield appears to own what was a matrimonial home in an expensive part of Kingston-upon-Thames, which at one time was reputed to be worth £3.5million.

‘I’m told that it is worth nothing like that because it is deserted, derelict and unkempt.

‘But it appears to be common ground that the property is still worth approximately £2m.

‘One would think with an asset of that kind she would be living in some kind of luxury.

‘Not only has the London Borough of Islington put a charge on that property, she has no funds to live there or keep it up.

‘As I understand it, it is a wasting asset.

‘What is more relevant is that an investigator discovered £46,000 under one of the defendants’ beds which had plainly been withdrawn from Mr Martin’s account.

‘That is presently held by police and they have no intention of returning it to the defendants without court proceedings.

‘I am satisfied the defendants live in shabby conditions and are plainly not squandering criminal proceeds.

‘Even if they were convicted on every single count I would not consider imposing a custodial sentence on either of them.’

The trial heard how Scholefield played landlady and pretended her brother was her tenant in the 15-year scam to bank housing benefit.

David Baird, prosecuting, said the pair were living together in a valuable Victorian conversion flat they jointly owned near the Emirates Stadium in Holloway, north London, when they launched the scam in July 1991.

The pair received around £100,000 of taxpayers’ money using this method until 2006, jurors heard.

Mr Baird said Scholefield also falsely claimed about £30,000 in housing benefit for herself while purporting to live at another property she owned in Great Ormond Street near the famous children’s hospital.

The money was received from London Borough of Camden for more than five years between December 1998 and February 2004, the court heard.

Martin and Scholefield, both of Hornsey Park Road, Wood Green, north London, jointly denied 14 counts of false accounting between July 17 1991 and July 11 2006.

Scholefield denied a further 14 like charges between December 7 1998 and February 11 2004.

ends