AN Olympian has been convicted of a £30,000 benefit fraud after failing to declare his lottery sports funding.
Peter Finbow, a Great Britain wheelchair basketball player and double bronze medallist, was at the 2008 Beijing paralympics when he discovered his money had been stopped and he was to be investigated.
Finbow, from Chickenley, pleaded guilty to two counts of benefit fraud. He was given an eight-week prison term, suspended for a year.
Prosecutor Michael Rawlinson told Leeds Crown Court that Finbow received monthly payments into his bank account from the UK Sports Lottery Fund over five years.
Part of the grant was to fund his place in the wheelchair basketball team and his travel to the paralympics. The rest, £500 a month, was to cover his living expenses.
Finbow failed to tell the authorities about his change in circumstances and was overpaid £22,427.
He also failed to tell Kirklees Council and received housing and council tax benefits of £7,648.
When he was arrested in March last year he told police he had not realised he had to declare it.
Mitigating, Robin Sellers said Finbow admitted he should have told the authorities but it was not a case of someone simply going out to work while cheating the system.
Finbow had already paid back £9,000 and would repay the full amount.
He had been playing wheelchair basketball since he was 17, and helped to win bronze medals in Beijing in 2008 and Athens 2004.
Mr Sellers said the proceedings had affected his performance and he was not in the national squad. Finbow continued to visit schools and tried to set an example.
Judge Geoffrey Mason told Finbow: "It is a tragedy to see a man like you in the crown court having pleaded guilty to such matters."
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