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£60,000-a-year man jailed for benefits fraud
AN ELDERLY businessman who earned £60,000 a year has been jailed for fraudulently claiming almost £146,000 in benefits.
York Crown Court yesterday heard how Brian Sutcliffe illegally claimed income support, council tax benefit and pension credit "on a monumental scale" for a decade, while he ran a business, received private pensions and enjoyed holidays at a timeshare in Tenerife.
Sutcliffe, 74, of Beaumont, Charlestown, Hebden Bridge, admitted one count each of false accounting, making a false statement, and retaining a wrongful credit and was jailed for three years concurrently on each charge.
His wife, Judith, 61, had pleaded not guilty to nine fraud offences but the case against her was not pursued because she is in poor health and the charges were ordered to lie on file.
Craig Hassall, prosecuting, said Mrs Sutcliffe began claiming income support in 1993 to meet mortgage payments when her husband was in prison for theft.
Her claim was reviewed in 1995 when he was released, the same year she suffered a brain haemorrhage, after which her health deteriorated.
Sutcliffe told the authorities a state pension was his only income and lied about his income and assets. In reality he had two private pensions, paying a total of 425 a month, and his wife had a further private pension of 40 a month.
Mr Hassall told the court Sutcliffe worked throughout the period – from December 1996 to June 2006 – but also claimed benefits, some of which paid off mortgage interest. Sutcliffe was ineligible for support with the mortgage on the couple's home, taken out to buy N&R Demolitions Ltd for 130,000.
He sold that business in 2000 but continued to work for it, as well as at a local farm and trading in vehicles.
In addition, Sutcliffe had a number of bank accounts and large deposits were made into his Yorkshire Bank account – totalling 193,000 between March 1997 and November 2005.
In October 2002 he sold land in Hebden Bridge for almost 26,000 and invested 20,000 from the proceeds in Premium Bonds.
Martin Robertshaw, in mitigation, denied Sutcliffe had funded a lavish lifestyle with the fraud proceeds and asked for credit for his guilty plea, which had spared his wife the ordeal of a trial.
Mr Robertshaw said Sutcliffe had a "somewhat cavalier attitude" to disclosing his circumstances to the authorities but had been trying to get himself out of a "financial mess" which worsened after his wife's illness and she now risked losing her home if he went to prison.
Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC said Sutcliffe pleaded guilty on the second day of his trial at Bradford Crown Court last month, up to when he had been insistent on fighting the charges.
The judge told Sutcliffe his wife was "a pawn in your hands" and prison was inevitable.
"She did what you told her," said the judge. "You set about a system of depriving the state of huge amounts of money.
"This is not the case of a desperate person trying to get a few extra pounds, or a mistake – this was about pure greed.
"You had a comfortable living due to your own hard work, approaching 60,000 per year, and for each year worked you were, from the public purse, deliberately and dishonestly giving yourself a 25 per cent rise.
"Now is the time the state will ask for financial payback and satisfaction for the public."
The judge commended work by fraud investigators from the Department for Work and Pensions and HM Revenue and Customs. A confiscation hearing will take place in April to recover the money.
Speaking outside court, DWP anti-fraud spokesman Vernon Sanderson said Sutcliffe had been totally uncooperative since the matter came to light in spring 2006, when it became clear he and his wife "had a lifestyle not commensurate with living on benefits".
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Saturday 26 May 2012
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