‘They’re heartless’: how one woman fell victim to the carer’s allowance trap

Karina Moon: ‘My guess is I will be paying that back for the rest of my days, and still doing a full-time caring job.’ Photograph: Joel Goodman/The Guardian

Karina Moon vividly recalls the telephone call that brought her to tears. She was stood, frozen, in the living room of her home in north Wales as a government official told her she needed to repay £11,292.75 or be prosecuted for fraud.

“I broke down, I was crying,” she said. “I was gobsmacked. I was absolutely distraught because I live within the law. They made me feel like I was defrauding it.”