A bit sick

[Gob]

A senior nurse pocketed thousands of pounds working for a private health agency – while being paid sick leave for her NHS job.

Hilary Bedson, 55, handed in sick notes for three months saying a shoulder injury left her unable to work.

But at the same time she was carrying out 12-hour shifts at EIGHT different hospitals for a nursing agency.

The theft came to light when she worked a shift at one of the hospitals in the same NHS trust that was paying her sick leave.

Comment: NHS can ill afford nurse's deception

Bedson, a nurse for 33 years, earned £6,000 from Montagu Nursing Agency – while getting £6,455 sick pay from Greater Manchester West Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust.

She told Tameside magistrates that she was desperate to work and took the agency job to prove she was fit enough.

Bedson also claimed she handed in sick notes to update managers about her treatment, and not to take time of as sick.

But magistrates said they could not believe a nurse of her experience would misinterpret what a sick note meant.

Bedson, of Mottram Old Road, Hyde, wept as magistrates ordered her to pay £5,000 in compensation to the trust and £2,000 in costs to the NHS after she was found guilty of theft. The court heard she handed in sick notes for three months from November 2008 to February 2009. Around this time she worked nearly 50 agency shifts around Greater Manchester as a senior nurse.

http://menmedia.co.uk/manchesterevening ... y-from-nhs

[Long Run]

Hilary Bedson, 55, handed in sick notes for three months saying a shoulder injury left her unable to work.

Looks like she shrugged it off and played injured. She should be commended for her fortitude.

[The Hen]

I'll see your "nurse off on sick leave and getting paid working in hospitals" and raise you a "benefits cheat working at the Job Centre".

[Gob]

It's good she's so fit..

Jogging on a treadmill, cycling on an exercise bike and carrying out a tiring weight training regime, Mary Grace, 60, appeared to have the energy of someone half her age.

But Mrs Grace was apparently suffering from crippling arthritis and pain so bad she could hardly walk.

Yesterday she was exposed as a benefit cheat who wrongly claimed almost £20,000 in disability handouts after saying she could barely walk more than 40 yards.

She had been claiming disability living allowance (DLA) since February 1996 for arthritis and depression she said she had suffered after serving as a witness in a murder trial.

But when her health improved around 2004, she continued to claim the benefits.

Yet three times a week she attended a local gym where she was spotted jogging on a treadmill, using an exercise bike and other gym equipment.

She was unmasked as a cheat after a tip off which led to investigators from the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) secretly filming her working out three times a week as member of the Spindler Fields Gym in Liverpool.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1Ksp4uNfN

[Sean]

A Scouse benefit thief...


...who woulda thunk it...

[oldr_n_wsr]

How does being a witness cause arthritis?

[The Hen]

Hard cold benches?

[Gob]

Now this is what you call taking the piss..

A woman who claimed benefits saying she needed crutches to walk was filmed skydiving out of a plane at 12,000 ft (3,657m) a court was told.

Magistrates heard Clare Jones, 37, from Tonypandy, Rhondda, was so proud of her jump she paid for the professional video - used in evidence against her.



She admitted fraudulently claiming £891 in incapacity benefits and £5,125 in disability living allowance.

She was given conditional bail and the case was adjourned for sentence.

Pontypridd magistrates were told how Jones was on benefits, claiming she could only walk up to 25 metres with the aid of crutches.

And she also claimed her back was so painful, she could not stand at the cooker or cut vegetables for her partner and three children.

She was caught out after volunteering to do the tandem jump - attached to an experienced instructor - to raise money for charity.

Another parachutist filmed Jones leaping from the aircraft above Swansea Airport and going into a 120mph free fall for 45 seconds.

The film ends with Jones landing comfortably on two feet, smiling and speaking into the camera.

Prosecutor Jonathan Holmes said: "A DVD obtained from the event showed her walking to the plane, parachuting out, landing and then walking away.

"At first she denied taking part in the parachute jump but later accepted she had done it."

Jones also visited her local gym 40 times using the facilities, swimming pool and sauna, Mr Holmes told the court.
Clare Jones Clare Jones said she could not walk without crutches

An investigation revealed that the leisure centre in Tonypandy had records of Jones logging in with her swipe card.

During the course of the inquiry Jones admitted walking to her local social club with her partner and dancing despite claiming she had severe back problems.

Mr Holmes said: "She accepted she went out at weekends with her partner walking to and from home to the club and dancing there.

"All these things should have been declared - clearly her symptoms had improved and the proper authorities should have been notified."

During the time of her claim Jones also worked at a sandwich bar called Funfillers and a restaurant called Truly Scrumptious, the court was told.

Clare Jones She has admitted the charges and will be sentenced at a later date

She has repaid the £891 incapacity benefits but still owes £5,014 of the disability living allowance.

After the hearing, Minister for Welfare Reform Lord Freud said: "It's cases like these that show us why welfare reform is needed.

"We have a duty to the taxpayer and our customers to make sure that these vital benefits only go to those who need them.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-sout ... s-13311882

[The Hen]

Why anyone thinks they can continually get away with this shit astounds me.

There are always friends relatives and acquaintances ready and willing to shop them.

[Gob]

Thank god...

[oldr_n_wsr]

I've tandem jumped. Other than the landing (and walking to the plane which is about 25 feet away from the hanger) you could probaly do this without legs.

[loCAtek]

Is there anyone who works for a living in the UK?

[Gob]

B-w-w-a-a-a-h!

A benefits cheat who was caught on CCTV brawling with police, despite claiming he could not leave home without a walking stick, has been jailed.

Timothy Harris, 46, from Sage Close, Northampton, was spotted on camera in the early hours of 1 January 2008, on a violent rampage in the town.

That incident, for which he received a suspended sentence, led to a Department of Work and Pensions investigation.

He was jailed for 15 months for the fraudulent claims and other offences.

The investigation found between January 2006 and November 2010, Harris fraudulently claimed income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit, Northampton Crown Court heard.

He told benefits officials he could not leave home without a stick after a wall fell on him.
Timothy Harris Timothy Harris told benefits officials a wall had fallen on him

The court was told he failed to declare a change in his circumstances and was found to have received £54,729 cash which he did not declare.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-13429161

[Gob]

A benefits cheat who claimed she couldn't walk without crutches but was filmed zooming down a waterslide on a luxury holiday was today ordered to sell her house to pay back money.

Mother-of-two Tina Attanasio, 51, from Cardiff, was ordered to pay back £16,000 after blowing cash on holidays despite claiming she could barely walk. She was caught out by her own family holiday videos showing her splashing around in her swimwear on a holiday in the South of France.



Attanasio admitted wrongly claiming £19,000 of disability living allowance and was ordered to repay £16,403. She was told by a judge she had six months to hand over the money.

Cardiff Crown Court saw footage of Attanasio enjoying an action packed motor home holiday at the time she was getting top-rate disability benefits.

It showed her climbing cobbled hills, bounding down steep steps and strolling on the beach.

She was also filmed in a bright red bikini happily sliding down a steep flume in a water park.

It also showed her easily climbing out of the swimming pool during the Mediterranean break.

The court heard how Attanasio had claimed she was 'too weak to walk any significant distance' without crutches.

Prosecutor Nicholas Gedge said: 'You claimed you needed help and assistance walking, getting in and out of bed, going to to the toilet and bathing.

'You said you could only walk 10 metres before feeling serve discomfort and said it would take you three minutes to do this.

'But these videos show you walking unaided, climbing up steep steps and using water slides.'

Attanasio, of Whitchurch, Cardiff, pleaded guilty to fraudulently benefits between August 2005 and February 2010.

She was jailed for 10 weeks in December last year, but brought back to court yesterday for a Proceeds of Crime Hearing.

She will have to pay back the money from the sale of her house.



Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1p2Rz3yHw

[Daisy]

The other side of the problem with our benefits system.

This is a real life friend of mine, who has been left so far in the shit by the DWP that it hurts.

Not funny but real.

I feel like I’m constantly complaining and moaning so I want to take this opportunity to just put down in 1s and 0s what is the matter with me. Why everything is fucked up. Why I’m technically homeless and why I can’t get out of it. I hope to shine a light on the true shit of this all the people who believe living on benefits is a walk in the park and that they’d like to be paid for lying about in bed all day. Last of all, I’m shouting out a “help”. I’ve hit a brick wall and have no idea where to move to next.

THE BEGINNING.

I was born with a condition called Congenital Hip dysplasia. It’s commonly known in babies as Clicky Hips. It’s checked for regularly and treated at birth. It essentially means that the hips aren’t in their sockets properly and if not corrected, will cause deformed hips.

The condition, for some reason, wasn’t spotted in me until I was seventeen years old, following an x-ray when I fell off a skateboard. Since then I’ve had so much treatment and work done on them. The problem is that the hip sockets are far too shallow for the actual ball-part of the joint and all the upper body weight is resting on the tiniest pieces of bone. The muscles and tendons are all thrown out of whack. I’ve had four different operations on them, one involving having the corner of my pelvis cut out and repositioned, resulting in two years of learning to walk again. I’ve had over a decade of physiotherapy to help me cope with this condition along with steroid injections into the gaps of the joint, hydrotherapy, acupuncture to no avail. I’ll never be able to carry a baby to full term naturally due to this condition.

It’s slowly got worse over the years. I’ve been taking some sort of opioid painkiller daily for twelve years but the constant, chronic pain is still there and essentially untreatable. I can’t remember the last time I had a proper night’s sleep.

I was working constantly until this summer just gone. The pain from this condition finally got bad enough for me to be signed off full-time, as has been expected for a long time.

I currently claim Employment Support Allowance at a rate of £67 per week. I am signed off by a doctor and am still trying to exist on the same rate as someone who simply isn’t working (hopefully) temporarily. I’m in the process of applying for Living Support Allowance but it’s apparently not looking hopeful that I’ll be entitled to it, for reasons unknown/un-understood by me, but I shall keep going.

I have been ‘lodging’ with a friend’s family for three years. I pay a very small amount for a lovely room in Zone 2. Unfortunately, since not being able to work, I can’t afford it. It’s a situation not entitled to housing benefit so I sadly started looking for somewhere new to live, and looking into getting Housing Benefit again. (eta: a lot of people suggesting ways to claim for this address, but unfortunately, for reasons I cannot go into in what is turning out to be a really well read post, it is absolutely not an option. Thank you all for your advice on this though.)
I claimed HB (Housing Benefit) one time before for a house I lived in in Leicester. It was following an operation and I had been living there two years already, paying rent while working until I was signed off sick (same condition) and it was so simple to get the HB changed over and any back rent paid-up.

Here is where I’m in the shit. The basic crux of the problem is:

I cannot claim Housing Benefit without having a lease.

I cannot get a lease without already having proof of Housing Benefit being paid to me. (Never mind applying for a Social Loan to pay any kind of deposit.)

Rock/hard place/stick up the arse. From September 2010, I have been looking all around the area, and London in general, for somewhere to rent. Most places won’t touch a HB tenant with a barge pole with an extending stick stuck on the end. Fair enough. It’s a ball-ache and every case is different and I can understand their reticence. If you do find a private landlord willing to take you on…you must already be able to show them that you are entitled to/claiming housing benefit and that you have rent and a month’s deposit up front. About a grand. Remember when I said my income is £67 p/w? And remember when I said the social won’t give me HB, or even proof that HB is entitled to me (which it most definitely is) until I can show them a signed contract, be living in the property and claim in arrears? The amount of times I’ve smashed my own head off the desk at the social office in frustration at this Catch 22 is through the roof. (I can’t smash anyone else’s head against the desk. They hide behind a perspex partition. For good reason I can see now.)

In October 2010, I applied to my local council housing department (Hammersmith and Fulham) for assistance with this situation. First question I’m asked: ‘Are you pregnant or do you have a child’? Apparently I’d be instantly entitled to help if I fitted into either of these categories. Thanks for rubbing in that I can’t have kids guyz. I made my application, was interrogated on multiple occasions, feeling like a cheat/fraud (following a half hour walk on crutches each way) and sat and waited. The application process was delayed because the doctor at the housing department had never heard of my condition. Because it’s not on a list they have, it’s not considered ‘serious enough for assistance’. Never mind that I’ve only met two other people in my entire life with the condition, and one of those was at the Royal Orthopaedic Hospital. My (wonderful) GP sent them another letter, outlining my condition and how it limits me and also the affect this entire situation has had on my pre-existing mental illness. It took three months altogether for them to say ‘Nah’. Their ruling was that my condition doesn’t stop me looking for a flat. True. It doesn’t. I’ve found hundreds of flat I could live in BUT NO ONE WILL LEASE TO ME. Head:wall doesn’t do my frustration justice.

Oh by the way, all through this time I’ve had to pay rent on the place I’m staying at. All my savings and inheritance and a tax rebate…every penny I ever had spare, gone. Now I’m staying unpaid versus sofa hopping. At this very moment (15th February) I haven’t received a benefit payment for three weeks due to a mess up at the benefits office with my sick note. I have 68p in the bank (which I can’t physically access as I can’t walk there due to pain). The cupboards are bare. I haven’t had a cigarette in 2 days and I haven’t spoken to a human being in eight days.

I’m all out of ideas. I’m constantly applying to charities/housing associations etc for assistance/support/anything to no avail. It’s a pretty unknown condition so Bruce Forsyth hasn’t set up a charity for me and I’m fucking stuck. I’m exhausted, broke, hungry, dying for a fag and I feel ike nothing. I feel like the lowest piece of shit on the shoe of society and I’m sad.

So…help?

Has anybody got any ideas? Any suggestions. Dont’ suggest the CAB. Everyone does that and you know what, I went there six months ago, and they told me what I’ve told you already. And Shelter. I need real, hardcore shit now. I really need to be out of here in two weeks. I can see that not happening. Just any ideas? email me at roxannelawin@gmail.com

ps…I was recommended to apply a black women’s refuge by the council after they turned me down for emergency housing but they rejected me. For being a white woman. Thanks H&F council

ETA: I’ve spoken to the social today regarding my immediate no cash situation and the only response I get is to apply for a crisis loan. The only way to apply is on a free phone number. Up to an hour and a half stood in a phone box as I don’t have access to a landline. Then it’s a 50 minute walk each way (I’m on crutches) to the benefits issuing centre as ‘broke’ means ‘do not have bus fare’. Then when I arrive, I will no be issued any giro in my name as I don’t have valid ID. My passport is out of date. If I can’t afford bus fare, what’s the likelihood I can afford to leave the country and have the need for an in date passport? So yeah. I’m hungry.

[Gob]

Which makes me even more furious at the cunts who rip the system off.

[BoSoxGal]

Isn't it foolish to require sale of house to repay fraudulently claimed benefits? Wouldn't a payment plan be better? Won't some council end up paying to house that person?

[Gob]

A benefits cheat who claimed he couldn’t walk without excruciating pain was caught on camera stock car racing, a court heard today.

Peter Wilkes, 45, said he was unable to get out of the bath because he had a bad back - but he was caught racing his vehicle and pushing a car up a ramp.

The fraudster, who hobbled into court today in a grey suit was filmed on six separate occasions racing his beaten-up stock car at Trent Raceway in Needwood, Staffordshire, between August 22 and October 17, 2010.





Prosecutor Paul Kay told magistrates that Wilkes competed in up to three races each day at the fortnightly meetings.

Wilkes was also caught on film climbing backwards out of a passenger window and walking around the raceway’s grounds.

In one video he can be seen speeding around the circular course, his car bouncing up and down as it careers along the bumpy ground.

He also posted his own videos on YouTube - which he wrote were filmed by his son.

After several laps, Wilkes collides with another car and spins out before driving into a pit area in the middle of the track.

He then unbuckles himself and clambers backwards out of the car with apparent ease.

Accompanied by his son, he can also be seen walking around the raceway without a limp, laughing and joking with friends and buying hamburgers from a race-side vendor.

The court heard that Wilkes, who damaged several vertebrae in a footballing accident in 1991, had no feeling below his left knee.

On his latest Disability Living Allowance claim form, dated December 10, 2008, he claimed that he could not walk on uneven ground without stumbling, could not bend over and often struggled to dress himself without assistance.

More...

Bank executive who shattered her ankle in 5ft jump off climbing wall on team-building exercise in line for £100,000 payout
Contempt of court: Thug falls asleep and snores in the dock as he's sentenced for punching policeman

In interviews with Department for Work and Pensions officials in December 2010, Wilkes said that he was 'permanently in severe discomfort, every step hurts.'

He fraudulently claimed £4,439 in Disability Living allowance between September 2009 and December 2010.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1pPqsCBug

[Jarlaxle]

Dishonest moron...

[Gob]

Ok, I thought the Brits were bad enough...

A scrounger who almost died after cutting his own foot off so he could stay on jobless benefits has been told he might still qualify for work despite his amputation.

Long term unemployed Hans Url, 56, had just been told his hand-outs would stop if he did not accept work found for him by job centre staff.

And when his claims that he was too sick and did not like the work were challenged with the offer of a medical, he took drastic measures.

Url, of Mitterlabill, southern Austria, rigged up a mitre saw and sliced off his foot – then put it in the oven for good measure to ensure no surgeon could reattach it.

But job centre staff have delivered a blow to hapless Url's plan by saying his new disability does not rule him out for work.

Police spokesman Franz Fasching said: ‘The planning was meticulous.

‘He waited until his wife and his adult son had left the house and he was alone.

‘He then switched it on and sliced off his left foot above the ankle - throwing it in the fire so it would not be possible to reattach it before he called emergency services.

‘He then made his way to the garage where he called emergency services and waited for them to arrive.

The police added that the man had almost died from loss of blood before the emergency services arrived and that they had recovered the foot from the oven - but that it had been too badly burned to reattach.

He was airlifted to hospital in Graz where his condition was said to be stable after emergency surgery to seal the wound.

A hospital spokesman said: ‘The foot was too badly burned to reattach. All we could do was seal the wound. He had lost a lot of blood - he almost died on the way to hospital. He was put in an artificial coma.’

The police spokesman Fasching added that they were investigating the case as an attempted suicide.

But Feldbach AMS job centre spokesman Hermann Gössinger said: ‘This is a tragic case but it will not help the man.

‘His latest excuse had been a bad back which is why he had been sent for a medical.

'But even now losing a foot does not automatically mean he will not be able to work. He will be assessed once he is out of hospital and we will see what work we can find for him.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... z1qM0vd1vx