Benefit cheat taxi driver jailed for eight months



A TAXI driver has been jailed for exaggerating his illness to claim £24,000 in benefits.

Simon Rodric (63), a married man from Christleton, admitted applying for a taxi licence a few months after getting a disability living allowance.

At Chester Crown Court on Monday, Mark Roberts, prosecuting for the Department for Work and Pensions, said: “He claimed he was paralysed from the waist down and walked with a stick and needed help to be pulled up from the sofa.

“He said he spent an hour going to the toilet because of his problems.

“At approximately the same time he was applying for a private hire taxi licence.”

Rodric, of Durban Avenue, first claimed benefit in September, 1996, but just three months later he was awarded the taxi licence after passing a medical health check.

Deborah White, defending, said Rodric did suffer from a condition which caused his spinal cord to swell.

The Recorder of Chester, Judge Elgan Edwards, said: “Although he suffers medical difficulties they are nowhere near as severe as he claimed. He was undergoing regular medical checks to make sure he was physically up to being a taxi driver.”

Miss White said Rodric had been forced to spend time in a neurological hospital in 1992 because of his complaint and had been a builder before his illness.

She added Rodric lived with his three children, one of whom was 14 and entirely dependent on him.

SJudge Edwards said he took into account Rodric’s age, health and prompt early plea, but handed him an eight-month prison sentence.

Apparently the council had not taken his badge away and now have to wait until it is due for renewal before they can do anything.

Clearly the council have got buffoons running it or they would have taken the license away when he was inside, and he couldn't have worked until his appeal.

It makes a bit of a mockery of the whole CRB thing in my opinion and should not be allowed to happen.

Considering that we carry drunk and vulnerable people and are supposed to be honest then I think that there is no way that anyone who has shown a flagrant breach of trust and is dishonest should be in such a position of trust.

Spot on

CC

As a proud atheist I don't often quote the bible but " Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" or have you NEVER done anything wrong JD?

I agree that none of us are card carrying angels, but I don't have much sympathy for benefit cheats.

They are the ones who undercut drivers cos they can make it up with tax-payers money.

If your looking for benefit swindlers how about the parasites in BUCKINGHAM PALACE?????????????????????

I see no reason why a benefits fiddle should make someone not a fit and proper person to drive a minicab.

If your looking for benefit swindlers how about the parasites in BUCKINGHAM PALACE?????????????????????
EDUCATE EDUCATE EDUCATE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!