Woman splashes cash after receiving £850,000 instead of usual £85 student grant

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A student mistakenly given £850,000 instead of her normal £85 monthly university food grant managed to blow £50,000 of it within three months.

South African student Sibongile Mani, 32, who was relying on benefits to pay for her studies, could not believe her luck when a government aid scheme sent her 10,000 times her normal payment, reports the Daily Mirror.Sibonglie suddenly became a millionaire when she woke up one morning with 14 million rands in her account.She went on a huge shopping spree and ditched her old wardrobe for designer clothes, purchased the latest iPhone and bought an expensive weave.The Walter Sisulu University student also splashed out on £100 bottles of scotch at posh venues where she partied several nights and spent over £600 a day.However, after she accidentally left a bank receipt behind at a supermarket she was busted.The receipt showed she had more than the equivalent of £800,000 in her bank and she was reported to the police.The student was arrested in 2017 and charged with theft and fraud, before being sentenced last year to five years in prison.After sentencing she wrote on her personal blog that she saw it as "miracle money" and a "gift from God".

and said she "didn't think twice" on whether it was wrong to spend it.Her lawyer Mr Asanda Pakade appealed her sentence on the grounds that Mani was no danger to society, she had not sought out the money, and was not a candidate for overcrowded prisons.

Mr Pakade said that the National Student Financial Aid Scheme had wrongly sent her 14 million rand and had not even noticed such a staggering amount was missing until students alerted them.