Golfing cheat tees off jail sentence for benefit fraud
Golfing cheat tees off jail sentence for benefit fraud
0 Comments | Western Morning News, The, Jul 23, 2010
A golf-playing benefits cheat who said he was too disabled to work has been sent to prison for conning the state out of more than Pounds 36,000.
Philip Bond, 62, of Tor Park Road, 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 Department for Work and Pensions 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 Pounds 36,400 between May 1996 and July 2008.
The court was told the main part of the claim, amounting to Pounds 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.
Tax investigators were 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 Department for Work and Pensions about changes to his circumstances, and further charges of obtaining money, benefits and property by deception.