Fiddling NHS boss escapes jail over ‘crippled’ son who was really a motocross champ

Julie Ann Preston, 43, believed to earn around £38,000 a year as a manager in the health service, admitted fraudulently claiming £34,615 over six years for her son Jake, whom she claimed needed round-the-clock care.

Today Preston was given a two-month jail sentence, suspended for 12 months, and ordered to do 200 hours of unpaid community work when she appeared before Judge William Morris at Bolton Crown Court.

Outside court, Vernon Sanderson, North West regional fraud manager for the Department for Work and Pensions, said: “We are surprised at this sentence, given that she pleaded guilty to stealing more than £34,600 of taxpayers’ money. We will be recovering all of that money.”

Preston, 43, from Loweswater Road, Farnworth, Bolton, had claimed her son was crippled with a rare condition called syringomyelia, causing him severe pain in his neck and spine from the age of four.

She claimed for him until he turned 16 in 2007, when, as an adult, he then had to make a claim for Disability Living Allowance (DLA) in his own name.

He had claimed the higher rate of DLA, for both his mobility and care needs, getting around £100 per week.

The higher rate of DLA is for people who are virtually housebound and need “significant care” both during the day and night.

It was claimed he could not walk a yard without severe pain and stopping to rest.

But DWP fraud investigators uncovered the scam when they followed him at weekends as he took part in motocross races across the UK.

They discovered he had been racing bikes since the age of 10, competing in Holland at one point, and he was filmed winning one race and coming third in another during the British Masters Motocross Championships in Whitby.

Jake Preston was convicted of a £15,128 benefit fraud last month and was sentenced to a 12-month community order with the requirement to do 250 hours of unpaid work.

His mother appeared for sentence today after pleading guilty at an earlier hearing to failing to notify the DWP of a change in her son’s circumstances, namely the improvement in his physical abilities between October 2001 and July 2007, relating to her claim for him when he was a youngster.