A wheelchair-bound Dundee benefit fraudster has been admonished after the case against her was returned to the sheriff who originally threw it out of court.
Prosecutors appealed Sheriff Alastair Brown’s decision to desert proceedings against Nadia Shields, 23, who was accused of claiming almost £5,000 in Income Support she was not entitled to.
The sheriff deserted the case last September after numerous requests by the Crown to have it continued without plea.
Shields, who is in a wheelchair following a spinal injury, was originally charged with failing to notify the Department for Work and Pensions about a change of circumstances.
She was accused of fraudulently receiving £4,982 in Income Support at her Kerrsview Terrace home from December 2011 to April 2013.
The case originally called in June last year but prosecutors asked for it to be continued four times to allow evidence to be disclosed.
Sheriff Brown eventually deserted the case, ruling that the process was “oppressive” as it related to matters that were, at that point, more than a year old.
However, the Crown Office appealed against the sheriff’s ruling and the case called again at Dundee Sheriff Court on January 16, where Shields pleaded not guilty.
A trial date was set, but Shields changed her plea and admitted claiming a lesser amount of £3,737 she had not been entitled to.