Just updating the blog dad...
Posted: Wed Feb 09, 2011 4:07 am
A FATHER who cheated the taxpayer out of £30,000 benefits was caught and jailed after his seven-year-old son wrote an online blog detailing the family's — TEN MONTH Caribbean cruise.
Fraudster Simon Daymond-Harris, 37, claimed £560-a-month in housing benefit from August 2006 due to his 'low income' as a barman.
He told authorities he worked 16 hours-a-week and, because of his modest wage, could not support his wife and three children.
Daymond-Harris claimed he was paying £925-a-month in rent at a four-bedroom waterside apartment in Millbay Marina Village, Plymouth, for four years.
But the flat was actually owned by his parents and he lived there rent-free, meaning he illegally pocketed £28,778.45 between 2006 and last year.
Daymond-Harris was caught after his son Oliver wrote an online blog about their ten month cruise of the Caribbean.
The blog, which has since been removed, led to further investigations which showed Daymond-Harris had doctored bank statements to try and hide the fact he was out of the country.
Sentencing Daymond-Harris to 12 weeks in prison at Plymouth Magistrates' Court, district judge Paul Farmer said: "This was a deliberate fraud which was dealt with in a sophisticated way.
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/ne ... cheat.html