Golfer was swinging the lead

A golf-playing benefits cheat who said he was too disabled to work has been sent to prison for conning the state out of £36,000.

Philip Bond, aged 62, from Torquay, made fraudulent claims for housing, disability, council tax and income support over a 12-year period — but Exeter Crown Court was told yesterday the only handicap he had was a 'respectable' 14-stroke one he built up on the fairways of Dainton Park Golf Club in Ipplepen.

Investigators from the DWP filmed Bond swinging clubs with apparent ease despite claiming he was so disabled he could barely put on his socks in the morning.

He was told by Judge Stephen Wildblood QC that his deception was 'fraudulent, repeated and knowing' from the outset, and was sent to prison for seven months.

Bond admitted 10 counts of dishonestly claiming benefit amounting to £36,400 between May 1996 and July 2008.

The court was told the main part of the claim, amounting to £34,360, was for disability living allowance, which Bond began claiming in 1996.

Prosecutor James Cranfield said Bond knew his claim was fraudulent from the outset but that did not stop him making other claims during the period for income support, severe disablement allowance, housing benefit and council tax benefit.

After Bond made the first fraudulent claim he would have been sent letters from the benefits office on a yearly basis asking him whether there were any changes to his situation.

He did not inform them of any changes.

Tax investigators were finally tipped off that Bond was not only playing twice a week at Dainton Park but also working as a painter and decorator in 2007 and 2008 at the Highweek Inn in Newton Abbot.

He had been a paid-up member of the golf club since 1993, had a 'mid-level' handicap and took part in competitions.

Mitigating, Martin Salloway said Bond did have a medical condition known as ankylosing spondylitis which affected the spine.

He said Bond's doctors had recommended he took exercise, and he found playing golf the most effective way to do this.

Bond admitted he had lied to the benefits office by exaggerating his symptoms of stiffness and breathlessness. He 'felt a sense of grievance' that he was being told he couldn't claim the benefits he wanted, he said.

Judge Wildblood said: "Each time you received benefit you must have known what you were doing was wrong and that knowledge must have been at the front of your mind over the 12 years you were committing this offence."

Bond admitted three counts of dishonestly falsifying documents, three of dishonestly failing to notify the DWP about changes to his circumstances, and further charges of obtaining money, benefits and property by deception.

Afterwards John Martin, the main investigating officer for the DWP, said: "The judge has very clearly stated that extensive benefit fraud will not be tolerated.

"It's our desire as a department that we do pay the right amount to people and clearly Bond was making false statements to claim benefit he wasn't entitled to."