A benefit cheat grabbed his laptop and desperately began transferring money to his daughter’s account when investigators exposed his four-year £27,000 fraud.
Francis Bowen, 65, had kept secret three bank accounts and a £20,000 lump sum payment he received from his former employers while claiming Employment Support allowance, Housing Benefit and Council Tax Benefit.
The father-of-two, Baker House, Winstanley Estate, Battersea yesterday received four months imprisonment, suspended for a year.
No order for compensation was made as Bowen, who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, is currently re-paying the Department of Work and Pensions £60 per fortnight and a lesser weekly sum to the London Borough of Wandsworth.
He pleaded guilty at Wimbledon Magistrates Court to three counts of of dishonestly failing to notify a change of circumstances in relation to the three benefits on dates between June 5, 2012 and August 1, 2016.
Prosecutor Miss Amanda McCabe told the court Bowen’s savings disqualified him from receiving benefits and he should have declared all the money in his bank accounts.
“In April, 2012 he received a lump sum of twenty thousand pounds, his occupational pension from Lambeth Educational Department.”
He had an excess of £16,000 - the cut off point for benefits - split between three different bank accounts he never declared and was confronted with the evidence by investigators.
“He got angry about this in interview and got out his own computer and started transferring sums to his daughter’s account,” explained Miss McCabe.
The court appearance was the first time Bowen has left the council flat, at which he rides alone, in eight months.
He was also ordered to pay £85 costs and a £115 victim surcharge.
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