£34,000 fraud cabbie jailed
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A PORT Talbot taxi driver has been sent to prison after pleading guilty to a seven-year benefit fraud involving almost £34,000.
John Evans was jailed for 10-and-a-half months at Swansea Crown Court for dishonestly claiming income support he was not entitled to.
The judge told 56-year-old Evans, of Morrison Road, Sandfields: "People like you who deliberately set out to cheat the system cause a great deal of concern and anger among the wider community."
Richard Cole, prosecuting, said that between 2001 and last year Evans fraudulently obtained £33,954 from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) by lying that he was out of work. The court heard that in March of 2001 Evans applied for income support and completed a form saying he was not working.
He said he had been a taxi driver from 1999, but claimed this employment had ceased at the start of the month.
As a result, he received income support until payments were stopped in 2008 as a result of an investigation by DWP officials.
Mr Cole said it emerged that Evans had not stopped working in 2001. He had continued to work as a cabbie, doing an average of 16 hours a week, and had been licensed by Neath Port Talbot Council.
"This work meant he was not eligible to receive any income support," said the prosecutor.
"It was a false claim from the outset and was maintained over an extended period."
Mr Cole told the court that, since August this year, Evans had started to "chip away" at the defrauded sum by paying back £12.50 a week from his wages as a taxi driver, but to pay the money back in full at that rate would take 60 years.
Dyfed Thomas, for the defence, said of Evans: "He has had chronic asthma since his childhood and has significant breathing difficulties."
The defrauded sum was so large, he added, because Evans had "buried his head in the sand.
"It comes down to this — he continued claiming what he should not have claimed in the first place.
"But there is now contrition and remorse for what he did and, in my respectful submission, this 56-year-old won't trouble the court again once this matter is behind him."
Recorder Rhys Rowlands, sentencing, told Evans: "This case is far too serious to be dealt with by anything other than immediate custody.
"You dishonestly claimed income support without disclosing the fact that you were working and aggravating features of the case are the amount of money involved and the length of time involved."
The judge declined to make a formal compensation order, saying this would be unrealistic in the circumstances.
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