Tobias Sylvester
A Nigerian woman identified as Olusola Owoeye will be spending the next two years in jail in the United Kingdom after being found guilty of falsely claiming over £114,000 after saying she was homeless while renting out her own house.
The 47-year-old single mother-of-three bought her own home before renting it out with a fraudulent mortgage – charging tenants up to £820 a month.
She then approached a local council claiming she had been made homeless so as to be given a flat.
She pocketed more than £114,000 over five years, until she was nabbed after one of her tenants she charged as much as £820 a month made a complaint at the council.
During her trial, the court heard that Owoeye first came to the UK from Nigeria in 2002. She then made a fraudulent mortgage application, claiming she was working in the software industry and earning £41,000 a year.
This allowed her to buy a home in Erith, south-east London, for £156,000 in June 2008.
She moved out four years later and lived with a friend. In 2013 she approached Bexley Council for support, claiming to be homeless.
She told staff that she had been evicted by a landlord, and was re-housed in Dartford and then Crayford. But her lies were uncovered in January last year when the tenant at her Erith home approached the council to make a complaint.
Owoeye was found guilty of three charges of fraud following a four-day trial at Woolwich Crown Court last month.
She was subsequently jailed for two years by Judge Jonathan Mann QC, who told her:
“There is only one reason you did what you did and this is because you are greedy. For you this was money for nothing.”
The presiding judge also praised the investigators who uncovered Owoeye’s fraudulent behaviour.
