By Staff Reporter

Last updated at 11:51, Monday, 16 November 2009

An ex-serviceman from Silloth falsely claimed more than £20,000 in housing and council tax support.

Terence Low, 64, claimed the cash over a five-year period by lying about his two pensions. He pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud before Carlisle magistrates on Friday, and was sentenced to a four-month curfew order.

The court heard how Low, of Golf Terrace, had submitted two benefit forms in 2004 that stated that his only income was from Incapacity Benefit and Industrial Injuries Benefit.

Another form in 2006 stated that he was also receiving Disability Living Allowance.

On all three occasions, he failed to declare both an army pension and an occupational pension from the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority.

Trevor Gear, of Allerdale Council, told the court how the army pension was discovered by the National Fraud Initiative in March 2009.

Investigations showed it had started in December 1976 and was still being paid into a bank account Low had not declared.

Copies of bank statements also showed he was also receiving a second pension from the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority.

Malcolm Dodds, defending, told the court his client had misunderstood the forms, but accepted that “ignorance of the law is no defence”.

Low had also been suffering from a series of health problems, including failing sight, strokes and diabetes.

He added: “It’s not a large-scale, carefully organised fraud and he’s not a professional fraudster.

“He’s a hard-working man who has fallen on not just hard times but ill-health as well.”

Low agreed to pay back a total of £20,509.84 in housing and council tax benefit, at a rate of £200 a month.

His curfew order requires him to stay at home seven days a week between the hours of 9pm and 7am.

First published at 11:37, Monday, 16 November 2009
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk