A woman accused of falsifying financial assistance applications and forging her landlord's signature on cheques will learn her fate this week.

Yvonne Bean, of Sandys Parish denies fleecing the Department of Financial Assistance out of more than $6,000.

"I just want to get off the welfare system forever," Bean told Acting Magistrate Tyrone Chin in Magistrates' Court on Thursday.

Bean, 33, is accused of falsifying her Financial Assistance form when applying for help paying the rent of her Southampton apartment. It is alleged that Bean also forged her landlord's signature on the falsified form as well as nine cheques she received from Government.

In order to qualify for the monthly assistance during the ten month period from November, 2001 to August, 2002 the defendant's landlord was expected to fill out a rental verification form. Because her landlord, Manuel Moniz, was living in Canada at the time of her application, Bean filled out the form herself.

It is alleged that Bean not only signed for her landlord but also gave a false rental value for the apartment as well as omitting that she shared the lease with a co-tenant.

At the time of the application Bean, who is a teacher's aide, was living with Robert Wilkinson and her son in the two-and-a-half-bedroom apartment. The rent for the apartment was fixed at $2,700 a month, but in her rental validation form Bean filed that it was only $1,350, which was her portion of the rent payment.

Having been assessed partially based on this falsified form, Bean qualified for a total of $6,039 in assistance which started in November of 2001 and continued until August, 2002, when she moved out.

Bean is also accused of forging her landlord's name when endorsing the cheques, which were made out to him.

She then deposited the cheques in Mr. Moniz' account.

But Bean's counsel, Peter Farge, pointed to Bean's testimony, when she said: "I indicated to the teller that Mr. Moniz was my landlord and that he resides in Canada. I also indicated that cheques were from Government particularly for rent payment to him and that I was presenting these cheques in his care for the payment of rent. She did not object to that."

Bean also maintained that she thought she could act as her landlord's agent during the ten month period in question because the Moniz family lived abroad. She said that a conversation with her landlord gave her the authorisation to write his name on the back of the cheques, in front of which she would place a `care of' symbol.

She told the court that had felt justified signing for Mr. Moniz after he told her: "I don't care what you do as long as you take care of the place and you pay the rent."

But Crown counsel Oonagh Vaucrosson pointed out a discrepancy in this claim, saying: "In the rental verification form, Mrs. Bean admits not putting her name in the space provided (for the landlord or his agent) but put Mr. Moniz's name as landlord. However in the space for his signature she signed her name and when she was asked why, she said she had signed her name as agent."

Bean's claim to be acting as her landlord's agent was further countered by Ms Vaucrosson when she told the Crown that Mr. Moniz's business in Bermuda was already represented by Telemaque & Associates who had sued Bean and her co-tenant Robert Wilkinson on Mr. Moniz's behalf for the $12,000 they owe him in rental arrears.

Acting Magistrate Tyrone Chin will hand down his judgement today.