Leeds pensioner taken to court over £22,000 housing-benefit fraud
A pensioner who swindled almost £22,000 in benefits has avoided being locked up, after it was heard he was repaying the money.
John Peters appeared at Leeds Crown Court where he admitted three counts of fraud.
The 74-year-old had been claiming housing benefit he was no longer entitled to.
Following an investigation by Leeds City Council, they found he had received more than £61,000 in wages in recent years, without informing the authorities of his changes in circumstances.
The court heard that Peters, of Whiteley Croft, Garth, Otley, first successfully applied for housing benefit in 2011 on the grounds that he was receiving low income and had no savings.
In 2022 it was requested that the records be updated, and Peters once again maintained he had low income and little in the way of savings.
But the investigation by the council found that he had been working, self employed, for a landscaping business and had earned £61,484 between October 2017 and February 2022.
Records also showed that he had more than £16,000 in savings.
He has received £21, 951 that he was not entitled to. The court heard that he had owned up to the fraud and a repayment plan was already in place, while a timetable for a Proceeds of Crime Act hearing had been set.
Mitigating, Eddison Flint said: “He accepted his responsibility from the outset. He has owned up from the outset.”
He said there was “genuine remorse”, was paying back £100 a month but was looking to increase that.
The judge, Recorder Richard Stubbs, gave him a four-month jail sentence, suspended for 12 months.