Benefits Cheat Claimed Thousands By Saying 10 Of His 20 Kids Were Blind!

Benefits Cheat Claimed Thousands By Saying 10 Of His 20 Kids Were Blind!

A BENEFITS cheat claimed thousands of pounds in false welfare payments by claiming to have 20 children – 10 of whom were blind.

Samuel Kill told a court he spun the web of lies to make enough money to move out of his parents’ house. He also told the Department for Work and Pensions on Christmas Day 2018 he was suffering from terminal liver cancer and only had five months left to live. He said it meant he no longer needed to go to the job centre.

The Department for Work and Pensions paid out more than £2,000 to Mr Kill. Swindon Magistrates Court heard how the 33-year-old, of West Tockenham, near Swindon, invented the scam so he could move out of his parents’ house.

Jeremy Griffiths, defending, said his client had been a carer but gave up his job to look after his father. After his father died in 2017, Kill was left living with his step-mother.

The pair did not get on well but, because Kill was not working, he had no money to help him find somewhere new to live. That was when the idea of making false benefits claims came into his head, Mr Griffiths said. His plan was to build up a fund to get out of the family home.

Kill made nine claims for advance Universal Credit payments on the basis that he had children living with him. In police interviews, Kill admitted to setting up email addresses to carry out the con. As part of the scam, he used old addresses or addresses where he had never even lived.

Kill confessed he found it “embarrassing” and felt disgusted with himself. Ms Griffiths said: “What I need to underline and underline and underline again is that Mr Kill was not in his own calm, collected mind when this was all happening. He wants to say how so, so sorry he is for what he’s done and will pay all the money back.”

Mr Griffiths explained to the court that Mr Kill was now working and living with a new partner. The court also heard the money has already been recovered by the Department for Work and Pensions.

Kill admitted 11 counts of benefit fraud at an earlier hearing. Chairman of the bench Alison Auvray said: “It is all of us that you are defrauding. This isn’t money that just comes from nowhere, it’s everybody including yourself – working people – who have to pay for this.”

Kill was ordered to complete 90 hours of unpaid work and 15 rehabilitation activity requirement days – he was also made to pay £135 in costs and surcharge.

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