Lorry driver who could barely walk caught on camera loading HGV - Mirror.co.uk

Dennis Douglas (Pic: DWP)

A lorry driver who received £20,000 in benefits after falsely claiming he was housebound avoided jail "by the skin of his teeth" today.

Dennis Douglas, 49, was paid the top rate of Disability Living Allowance (DLA) for 19 years and secretly had a well-paid job for around half that time, Liverpool Crown Court was told.

Douglas, from Hillfoot Avenue, Hunts Cross, Merseyside, claimed severe arthritis meant he could barely walk or climb a staircase.

But covert surveillance, launched after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) received an anonymous tip-off, filmed him climbing in and out of his HGV cab, loading the vehicle and driving off.

Douglas pleaded guilty at an earlier hearing before Liverpool magistrates to knowingly failing to notify the DWP of a change in circumstances.

As a result, he was wrongly paid £20,246.80 in DLA between November 2001 and October 2010.

At today's sentencing, prosecutor Kevin Slack told the court Douglas was paid the highest rate of DLA, reserved for those who were "virtually unable to walk".

The defendant was also earning up to £23,000 a year as a HGV driver and took his family on holidays to America each year between 2005 and 2009, Mr Slack said.

Mr Slack also told the court Douglas had been charged with the wrong offence due to an error in the magistrates.

It meant the maximum sentence which could be passed by Judge Brian Lewis was three months in jail, while other benefit cheats who stole a similar amount of money could expect a minimum of six months imprisonment.

The judge described the matter as "quite ridiculous".

In mitigation, defence barrister Charles Lander said Douglas had been genuinely ill from 1991 and returned to work a decade later when he decided to "better himself".

"This defendant is shameful and remorseful and openly admits his criminality," Mr Lander said.

Douglas had also repaid £600 to the DWP since being arrested, the court heard.

Judge Lewis jailed Douglas for 56 days, suspended for two years, and ordered him to complete 180 hours of community work.

The judge told him: "You have escaped immediate imprisonment by the skin of your teeth.

"For a period of virtually nine years you persistently and quite deliberately cheated the public out of a sum of just over £20,000.

"That is a very substantial amount of money.

"It is very close to the annual salary of a newly qualified teacher or nurse and you caused a hole in the public accounts with your rampant dishonesty.

"While you were jetting off on trans-Atlantic holidays, the taxpayers were working their socks off to fill that hole.

"You should feel thoroughly ashamed of yourself."