Mother Facing Year In Jail For Wrong Address Statement

[1929crash]

A mother is facing up to a year in jail after becoming the first person in Britain to be prosecuted for fraud for allegedly providing a false address in an attempt to get her child into a leading state school.

Mranil Patel, 41, admits putting her mother’s address as her own on an application form when trying to get her five-year-old son Rhys into sought-after Pinner Park First School in Harrow, North-West London.

Her mother, Mrudula, lives in a £200,000 flat within the catchment area of Pinner Park – the most over-subscribed primary school in the area, with about 430 applications for just 90 places. Its most recent Ofsted inspection found it to be ‘outstanding’ in 29 out of 31 categories

http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/news/article...ter-school.html

And yet the fraudulent MPs will go free! :angry: :angry:

[Cogs]

She won't go to jail and I doubt she'll even be fined.

[1929crash]

She won't go to jail and I doubt she'll even be fined.

I hope you're right. But being prosecuted is stressful enough, and that is omething MPs probably won't face.

[starsky]

Hopefully she'll get what she deserves for trying to cheat an eligible child out of their place.

[1929crash]

Hopefully she'll get what she deserves for trying to cheat an eligible child out of their place.

Ah, but at a time when the Westminster Criminals are getting away with grand larceny, punishing ordinary people for misdemeanours such as this becomes problematic. How can you send a benefit cheat to jail for defrauding the taxpayer of £500 when Margaret Moran gets away with £22,500 for her Southampton holiday home?

[Injin]

Hopefully she'll get what she deserves for trying to cheat an eligible child out of their place.

You don't serously think that kidnap, assault, locking in a box for a year and probably sexual assault by a fellow inmate on top of that is in any way justified?

Je - sus.

[General Melchett]

You don't serously think that kidnap, assault, locking in a box for a year and probably sexual assault by a fellow inmate on top of that is in any way justified?

Je - sus.

Absolutely.

And these are state schools: What makes child living at address A more eligible for a place at a given school than a child living at address B?

[snowflux]

Absolutely.

And these are state schools: What makes child living at address A more eligible for a place at a given school than a child living at address B?

Err, because address A is closer to the school than address B? What criteria would you use?

[General Melchett]

Err, because address A is closer to the school than address B? What criteria would you use?

So what? It's a criterion that could be used, for sure, but why is it better than any other criterion? As far as I can see, it just favours those who have parents rich enough to pay to live closer to a 'desirable' school.

[SarahBell]

Haven't some schools implemented random picks to put an end to this?

It makes sense from an enviromental and social aspect to send kids to their nearest schools.

And if all schools were equal then this wouldn't be a problem.

[General Melchett]

Haven't some schools implemented random picks to put an end to this?

It makes sense from an enviromental and social aspect to send kids to their nearest schools.

And if all schools were equal then this wouldn't be a problem.

+1 Thank you for putting into words.

[InternationalRockSuperstar]

So what? It's a criterion that could be used, for sure, but why is it better than any other criterion? As far as I can see, it just favours those who have parents rich enough to pay to live closer to a 'desirable' school.

it's a good example of the state being unable to completely destroy market forces in education.

the price signals that should be appearing in fees (but are not allowed to) have instead popped up in property values.

Edited May 10, 2009 by InternationalRockSuperstar

[phead]

The part I fail to see here is, where is the fraud?

She tried to get a service that costs nothing in preference to an service that costs nothing, what is left, a future salary benefit to the child? That would be near impossible to prove, given that you would need to separate the social benefit of the parents from the value of the education.

[Cogs]

The part I fail to see here is, where is the fraud?

She tried to get a service that costs nothing in preference to an service that costs nothing, what is left, a future salary benefit to the child? That would be near impossible to prove, given that you would need to separate the social benefit of the parents from the value of the education.

She put something down on a form that wasn't true and signed her name to it. Philosophical distinctions don't count, it has been very easy for them to prove that the address she listed as her own was not where she was living.

[Guest BAREBEAR_soon to be ALIVA]

She's been very unlucky,I put things on forms that are untrue all the time. I often wonder what they do with all these forms, anytime I've had to refer someone back to my form they haven't got it.

She wont get done for it,who has lost anything ?

And what a silly bit of nonsense catchment areas are anyway,there was a day when you had the choice of loads of schools.

What was wrong with that ?

[Guest BAREBEAR_soon to be ALIVA]

She put something down on a form that wasn't true and signed her name to it. Philosophical distinctions don't count, it has been very easy for them to prove that the address she listed as her own was not where she was living.

Haha we dont seem to have much luck proving where the MP's live.

If she's used a random address then she's been a bit foolish.

[geezer466]

I can't believe no one has yet picked up on the fact she works for RBS and as a result of her child not getting into the preferred school now sends him to a Private local school at £2600 a term.

Presumably funded from her large taxpayer sourced bonus??

[SarahBell]

She's been very unlucky,I put things on forms that are untrue all the time. I often wonder what they do with all these forms, anytime I've had to refer someone back to my form they haven't got it.

She wont get done for it,who has lost anything ?

And what a silly bit of nonsense catchment areas are anyway,there was a day when you had the choice of loads of schools.

What was wrong with that ?

Who has lost?

Well a properly entitled child could have lost out on a place.

And if all schools were equally good you wouldn't need a choice.

I really think "choice" is a bad way of letting people getting involved in health or education.

You should go to the nearest school and the nearest hospital. Choice just makes you forget that we all have the same entitlements to a good standard of service.

Rather than fart about with forms for picking which school parents should get involved with their nearest one and make it better.

[Guest BAREBEAR_soon to be ALIVA]

Who has lost?

Well a properly entitled child could have lost out on a place.

And if all schools were equally good you wouldn't need a choice.

I really think "choice" is a bad way of letting people getting involved in health or education.

You should go to the nearest school and the nearest hospital. Choice just makes you forget that we all have the same entitlements to a good standard of service.

Rather than fart about with forms for picking which school parents should get involved with their nearest one and make it better.

Yeh good point. Back in my day , there were schools to avoid because they were really rough and kids used to travel many miles just to get to one that wasn't.

No one thought of getting involved with the school to make it better, it appears they still dont.

[Guest AuntJess]

This is the "Penny-wise - pound-foolish" modus operandi of the PTB.

Come down heavily on a minor transgressor but let serious villains off leniently.As I have said MANY times before: "Welcome to topsy-turvy Britain"

Edited May 11, 2009 by AuntJess

[Danny Deflation]

A mother is facing up to a year in jail after becoming the first person in Britain to be prosecuted for fraud for allegedly providing a false address in an attempt to get her child into a leading state school.

Mranil Patel, 41, admits putting her mother’s address as her own on an application form when trying to get her five-year-old son Rhys into sought-after Pinner Park First School in Harrow, North-West London.

Her mother, Mrudula, lives in a £200,000 flat within the catchment area of Pinner Park – the most over-subscribed primary school in the area, with about 430 applications for just 90 places. Its most recent Ofsted inspection found it to be ‘outstanding’ in 29 out of 31 categories.

Ofsted is a load of nonsense. Schools get two or three days' notice that Ofsted are "coming in". Often they get more notice because word goes out on the grapevine, and also Ofsted tend to inspect the schools in a particular area in order so the schools can generally work out, within a few weeks, when their inspection will be.

Schools prepare for Ofsted. It's basically about pulling the wool over the inspectors' eyes. They'll spend days getting all their stats together and processing them in such a way that it makes the school look good. (As we all know, you can find stats to prove anything.) Badly behaved students are often given time off during inspections - or are excluded immediately prior to prevent the naughty kids causing problems. Schools are often allowed to chose which teachers get observed, so the schools will naturally choose the best teachers who will then perform all-singing all-dancing lessons, which give no indication of the day-to-day life in the school.

Ofsted used to visit schools for a week. These days, it's often one or two days, usually with two or three inspectors.

You can't blame the teachers. To paraphrase Nu Labour: you can't blame the schools if the system's wrong.

Oh, and guess who pays for Ofsted? Here's a clue: it's the same people who pay for our MPs' gardening, nappies, bath plugs, second homes and porn films.

[Saberu]

Schools prepare for Ofsted. It's basically about pulling the wool over the inspectors' eyes.

Definitely, when I was at school every time we had an ofsted inspection all the students in the school were warned of it and that they had to be on their best behaviour or see the head master.

Students aren't stupid, they realise it's not worth the hassle to cause trouble during the inspection when they can do it the rest of the year scotch free.

I went to a supposedly 'good' school and whilst grades were reasonably good (top 100 in the country or something) there was very little discipline measures for bullying yet very strict reactions to any abuse given to teachers.

The reason for this being that the teachers had a completely uncaring attitude that was very light touch for fear of upsetting parents. And as investigating bad students or bullying can be a time consuming process they just don't bother and instead warn any students involved that they will all be 'put in detention' if anything happened again.

The school was run like a Chinese company, all about image and grade results, nothing else mattered, and in terms of the teaching staff any staff who didn't smouch with the right people never got a pay rise (at least not anything above 2%).

I know this because one of the science teachers, in fact he was the best one at the school in my opinion, told me he'd been there 4 years and was still on the same salary.

[THE BALD MAN]

Hopefully she'll get what she deserves for trying to cheat an eligible child out of their place.

Soory but in compariosn with what MPs have done this is so trivial it is pathetic. Of course there will be ajobsworth who will be trying to prosecute to enance his career in local meddling.

[THE BALD MAN]

She put something down on a form that wasn't true and signed her name to it. Philosophical distinctions don't count, it has been very easy for them to prove that the address she listed as her own was not where she was living.

Sounds a bit like what an MP does on his expenses.

[fookwit]

The issues surrounding this have been debated many times before on here and on those debates the consensus seemed to be its ok to cheat lie and have rampant HPI around the best state schools as educating little Timothy and Tallulah is more important than anything else.

Now that mummy and daddy can't afford private education in some cases I expect the problem to get worse not better. The fact of the matter is selection is alive and well to those that can afford it. Why do you think all schools are not equal it's because mummy and daddy have access to the league tables so can skew the system to their advantage.

I personally would prefer to go back to more honest form of selection, the grammar school. At least this is based on intellectual ability not the ability to move to the right area, this way intelligent children from poorer families can benefit too. Local schools should be for local children of course that is right but when some houses have a catchments premium of over £100k what you will find in reality are local people being pushed to the benefit of Timothy and Tallulah.

People lying about where they live just makes matters worse but who can blame them when the government in trying to abolish a selection based system have just created a much worse two tier system in its place.