A former mayor who got £18,000 in benefits by claiming he could not walk unaided has escaped jail, despite being caught on camera hauling a huge bag of heavy compost from his car and carrying it to his garden.
The DWP carried out a five-month covert investigation on Horwich ex-mayor and former Liberal Democrat Councillor Bernard McCartin, 66, who claimed it would take him half-an-hour to walk just 25 yards. He was filmed by surveillance officers easily covering distances of up to 1,100 yards with no discomfort and no difficulty and at a brisk pace.
But he got an eight week suspended jail sentence after being caught red-handed bending, kneeling and sitting on his haunches while staining his front fence and stretching to clean his front porch while stood on step ladders. He was given a six-month curfew between 5pm and 5am and would be electronically tagged, and was ordered to pay £250 costs at £5 a week.
An anonymous tip-off to the National Benefit Fraud Hotline back in 2006 sparked a surveillance operation which was carried out between January and May 2007. He was also spotted hauling tables and boxes to sell football programmes outside Bolton Wanderers football stadium.
Mr McCartin, a former special constable, chauffeur and and Remembrance Day parade leader, was interviewed under caution in August 2007 and admitted there had been an improvement in his condition since May 2003 when he became a councillor. It has only now come to trial in 2009.
He is currently repaying the cash back at a piffling £12 per week and has so far paid just over £500.
After the hearing Andrew Wood, a Team Fraud Investigator for the DWP fraud investigation service, said: 'I think the sentence that has been handed down demonstrates how seriously the courts view this type of offence'.
Indeed it does - a trivial punishment for stealing £18,000.
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