Licence fraudster jailed
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A driver who obtained an HGV licence by using a false name. address and national insurance number has been jailed for 18 weeks for benefit fraud.
Salford magistrates were told that John Ward of Eccles. Manchester, had received £16,483.70 in disability benefits after claiming he couldn't walk more than four yards. However, he had been driving a 40-tonne tipper under the false name 'Sean Walsh' for Manchester-based Redgate Holdings, earning £300 a week.
Following an anonymous tip-off he was filmed by DWP fraud inspectors getting in and out of his truck and walking unaided.
Jailing Walsh and ordering him to repay the money at £7 a week, the magistrates said it had been a "sophisticated" deception.
Ward's wife Winifred, who had claimed carer's allowance since April 2007 as his fulltime carer, was given a 12-month Community Service Order and a 12pm to 6pm curlew.