Is this the way Tower Hamlets Council should "represent" the community?

Councillor makes fraudulent claim for housing benefits for a second time
Mark Blunden


11 Jan 2012


A close colleague of Tower Hamlets mayor Lutfur Rahman today faced cross-party calls to resign after fraudulently claiming housing benefits for a second time.


Shelina Akhtar, an independent councillor, pleaded guilty to three counts of dishonestly claiming housing and council tax benefits for a property in Poplar at Snaresbrook crown court on Monday.


Despite committing benefit fraud for a second time she has been allowed to keep her council seat.


The housing benefit falsely claimed totalled £1,085 and £29 council tax benefit. The charges related to two periods between November 2009 and September 2010 at her Swan Housing Association-owned property.


Before Akhtar entered guilty pleas on Monday, a warrant was issued for her arrest after she failed to turn up at court. She sent a doctor's letter saying she was unwell and unfit to stand trial.


But the judge threw out her plea and threatened to issue an arrest warrant if she did not turn up. Akhtar was bailed and is due to be sentenced on February 6.


After her first conviction, at Thames magistrates' court in July 2010, Akhtar was sentenced to 100 hours of unpaid work and ordered to pay £250 costs.


The independent councillor won her Spitalfields and Banglatown seat in the 2010 local elections, where she originally stood as a Labour candidate but defected to become an independent and work alongside the directly-elected independent mayor, Mr Rahman.


Opposition councillors now want her to resign. Tower Hamlets Labour group leader Joshua Peck said: "In most local authorities, it would be inconceivable that she didn't resign on the first occasion."

A Tower Hamlets-based newly-arrived Bangladeshi man disgraces the whole community

AADHIKARonline publishing a news item from the web site of the former “East London Advertiser” [now merged as a title in the Archant-company-owned and Docklands-fronting titles that are now based in Ilford, East London]

Poplar sham marriage pair jailed for total of six years


By Nadia Sam-Daliri

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

12:15 PM

An east London “couple” who devised an elaborate immigration scam have been jailed for a total of six years.

Mohammed Tanin, 26, and Maria Marques, 47, arranged to take thousands of pounds to arrange sham marriages between Bangladeshi men and Portuguese women.

Tanin, of Willis Street, Poplar, was sentenced to four years and Marques, of East India Dock Road, Poplar got two years at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Monday.

The couple themselves had married at the Registry Office in Bow Church in November 2009.

Atiq Haque, who led the UK Border Agency’s investigation, said: “This case shows the desperate nature of immigration crime with large sums of money changing hands and people being prepared to enter into a full marriage with someone they barely know.”

The couple were stopped at Luton Airport in June 2010 after they were found travelling with several Portuguese women, whose travel documents they were carrying.

The following month, the UK Border Agency received applications for four Bangladeshi men in the UK on valid student visas to marry four of the women.

The men were arrested and later made full admissions implicating Tanin and Marques, admitting they had paid between £2,000 and £3,000 for their services.

Later probes showed that Tanin had tried to create a back story for each bride to be and further incriminating documents were found on his laptop.

He and Marques were charged with conspiracy to facilitate a breach of UK immigration law. .



They had both denied the charges. .



Two Portuguese ‘brides’ pleaded guilty to conspiracy to arrange their own sham marriages and were each given 14 day jail terms. .



The UK Border Agency said the remaining ‘brides’ have not been traced and are believed to have returned to Portugal.


AADHIKARonline quotation of the “East London Advertsier” website item is concluded