A takeaway owner defrauded Dundee City Council out of more than £17,600 in housing benefit.
Rashid Ismail, 45, of Artillery Lane, admitted telling council officers he was only an employee at Istanbulie, on Union Street, working 22 hours per week.
However, Dundee Sheriff Court heard he is actually the owner of the business and was earning far more than the amount he declared.
Kurdish national Ismail, who was assisted in court by an interpreter, pleaded guilty to that offence, which took place over a period of four years. Fiscal depute Gavin Burton told the court that due to Ismail’s early plea he was asking for an adjournment for the preparation of a written narrative of the circumstances of the case.
Solicitor Ian Myles requested the adjournment be for a longer period as Ismail’s interpreter spoke a different dialect from the accused and they would seek a specialist interpreter to appear alongside him at the sentencing diet.
Rashid admitted that between April 21 2014 and February 4 2018, at his home and elsewhere, he knowingly made a false statement or representation, namely on housing benefit and council tax reduction application forms, that he was an employee of the Istanbulie takeaway, working 22 hours per week, the truth being that he was the licence holder and business owner and in receipt of income in excess of that declared, and that he obtained housing benefit of £17,687.04 to which he was not entitled.
Sheriff Jillian Martin-Brown deferred sentence on Rashid until October 10.
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