Roger Roberts was convicted on five charges of dishonestly claiming income support of £2,459 in addition to housing benefit and council tax benefits of £8,159 between February 2003 and June 2008.
The fraud was uncovered by a data match made by the DWP which identified that Mr Roberts held accounts that he had failed to disclose that held money far in excess of the limit for claiming benefits.
Mr Rogers told the court that he had started to repay the money he had fraudulently claimed and thought that would be the end of the matter!
He was sentenced to a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to repay £6,853.80 still owing to the council through a compensation order, £4,000 of which must be paid within 28 days. Mr Rogers will also have to repay the £2,459.30 of income support owing to the DWP and he was also ordered to pay £150 towards the prosecution costs.
Councillor Mike Braley, who must have been a disappointed man, said:
We are committed to recovering fraudulently overpaid benefit as quickly as possible, but, for various reasons, it can take some time for a case to get to court. Repayment may be taken into consideration in sentencing for offences but will not prevent a case being taken to court.DWP unit fraud investigator Colin Mitchell added:
Our investigators have more powers than ever before – we can check the bank accounts and household bills of those we suspect of fraud, as well as working with local authorities like Redditch to ensure benefit claims are valid. Matching data this way has helped uncover millions of pounds in overpayments every year.
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