Benefit cheat barmaid admits £11,647 false disability claim
A benefits cheat falsely claimed more than £11,000 in disability payments while working behind a bar, a court heard.
Margaret Lewis, 59, of Llys Rhufain, Caersws, near Newtown, falsely claimed £11,647.10 of Disability Living Allowance over a 13 year period from January 2000 to April 2013 while working as a barmaid at the village recreation club.
Lewis admitted a charge of falsely making a statement to obtain benefits when she appeared at Welshpool Magistrates Court yesterday.
The court heard how she began claiming the money in July 1995. It started out as a genuine claim, but following three operations, she would no longer have been entitled to the money, magistrates were told.
She was ordered to carry out 100 hours of unpaid work in the community and pay £85 costs and a £60 victim surcharge.
Mrs Helen Tench, prosecuting, said the Department for Work and Pensions received an anonymous tip off on their benefits cheat hotline, sparking an investigation.
She said: "Lewis began claiming Disability Living Allowance in July 1995 and at the time this was genuine as she had visual problems and also problems with her hands from arthritis.
"However, following the tip off it was discovered that she had had three operations to help and would have no longer been able to claim the benefits.
She had also started bar work in the recreation club and therefore the false claims happened between January 2000 and April 2013.
"The amount claimed was £11,647.10."
Mr Paul Inns, for Lewis, said his client had paid the money back in full.
He told the court the claim had started out as genuine.
"The money has been paid back in full by her and her husband from a lump sum pension pot he received, so what the couple had put away to help in later life is now gone," Mr Inns said.
"The original claim was genuine and it is only when she failed to notify them of the change and that she had made improvements in her health that they became false.
"This has been a humiliating experience for her and her family and she accepts that she should have said something sooner rather than later.
"She will not be claiming anything from the public purse again, even anything she is entitled to."
