And it looks that this guy wasn't on his own. Record levels of benefit fraud have been detected by a Government watchdog but authorities are failing to tackle the problem, according to a new report.

The National Fraud Initiative carried out every two years by the Audit Commission, has uncovered £140 million in fraudulent benefit claims in 2006/07.

This includes £24 million in housing benefits, £4 million in income support,28 million in Disability Living Allowance and more than 16,000 disabled parking badges being used by people who did not need them.


Chairman Michael O'Higgins said people are stealing homes, pensions, student loans, parking places and benefits, seemingly confident that no one is tracking them. They are wrong. We urge all public bodies to put in place the necessary trained staff to work with us and follow up any matches. It makes both moral and financial sense to detect fraud and over-payment.


If there is no effective penalty for fraud there is no deterrent. We   should adopt a zero tolerance on those that commit this type of fraud.
The report comes after news that the bill for Incapacity Benefit is now higher than the estimated cost of staging the 2012 Olympics.