A welder who fiddled £27,500 benefits to pay off loan sharks has been jailed.
Adrian Williams, aged 54, started claiming incapacity benefit when he was genuinely sick but carried on doing so after he got better and went back to work. He also fiddled income support, housing and council tax benefits for three years, Exeter Crown Court was told.
Ex-soldier Williams, of Gregory Close, Tiverton, admitted three offences of dishonestly claiming benefits and one of false representation and was jailed for three months by Judge Graham Cottle.
The judge told him: “You carried out a fraud on the Department of Work and Pensions for a significant period of time and obtained £27,500 or thereabouts – a significant amount of money.”
Mr Malcolm Galloway, prosecuting, said Williams claimed a total of £27,546 he was not entitled to for more than three years until he was caught in March 2010.
He was found to have been working for a company called Jansen UK as a fabricator. He admitted he knew he had to report he had started work.
Mr Will Hopkin, defending, said: “He did have genuine medical problems and found himself £15,000 in debt. He went to a loan shark who put him under all sorts of pressure.
“He needed extra money and his accounts show he paid out £200 cash every week. He knows he did wrong. He was under pressure and his response was to work hard as a welder.”
Separately, a 61-year-old Winsford woman has escaped a jail sentence after admitting benefit fraud.
Barbara Purcell, of Caldy Way, Winsford, pleaded guilty to three offences of dishonesty relating to overpayments of more than £54,000 in Income Support, Housing Benefit and Council Tax.
She was sentenced to 24 weeks imprisonment, suspended for 12 months, 150 hours of unpaid work in the community, and was ordered to pay £300 prosecution costs.
She is required to fully repay the overpaid benefit to the Department for Work and Pensions and Cheshire West and Chester Council.
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