Navy officer 'falsely claimed cash'

Mar 11 2013

A Royal Navy senior rating fraudulently claimed more than £13,000 in boarding school allowance for her son by falsely stating that her family was accompanying her on assignment, a court martial heard.

Master at Arms Eileen Harvey was living with her husband and son in Alton, Hampshire, in 2010 when she was given a new position at HMS Neptune in Clyde naval base near Glasgow.

The senior rating, responsible for service discipline, falsely claimed in personnel forms that her family would be moving with her to Helensburgh, a town near the Clyde base, a court martial trial at Portsmouth Naval Base heard.

This included applying for boarding school allowance, called continuity education allowance (CEA), worth a total of £13,150 on the basis that her son would accompany her to Scotland.

But in fact her husband was to remain at their Hampshire home and the son was to remain at his current boarding school in Southsea, the hearing heard.

Lieutenant Colonel Richard Allen, prosecuting, said the CEA is specifically allocated to personnel whose family move with them when given a new posting.

"She stated she was to continue serving accompanied and even gave details of the new family address to which they had moved but of course they had not moved, they had remained in Hampshire," he said.

The alleged offences emerged when Harvey's boss, a warrant officer, went on a training course which explained the correct use of the CEA and other expenses. The trial heard that when questioned, Harvey said she had made an "admin error".

Lt Col Allen said: "She said she didn't remember filling the housing allocation form online. She didn't remember the housing officer asking if it was to be a family move. She denied dishonesty, saying 'I know how it looks but it's just not like that'."

Harvey denies three charges of making a false record and three offences of fraud.