A Kendal man has admitted a benefit fiddle totalling around £30,000 after failing to disclose for several years that his physical mobility had improved.
Carlisle Crown Court heard today that Neil Filer lodged a claim for Personal Independence Payment (PIP), legitimately, in January, 2017.
For several months, 46-year-old Filer received these PIP amounts perfectly properly. But from around July that year, at the time of a holiday, that situation changed.
When Filer appeared in court, he pleaded guilty to one charge of fraud having failed to disclose to the Department for Work and Pensions — as he had a legal duty to do — that there had been an improvement in his physical mobility. His offending occurred at Kendal between April 26 of 2017 and March 20 in 2022.
Judge Nicholas Barker noted: “It is accepted by the defendant that he failed to notify an improvement in his health soon after the commencement of the benefits.”
Defence barrister Anthony Parkinson, representing Filer, agreed the fraud had begun just months after the benefits started with the sum illegally claimed in the case put at around £30,000. It was not asserted by the prosecution the claim was fraudulent from the outset, he added of the agreed position.
The precise value of the fraud had yet to be determined but would be agreed in the coming weeks.
In the meantime Filer, of Peat Bank, Kendal, had his case adjourned for the preparation of a probation service pre-sentence report. He was granted unconditional bail and is due to receive his punishment from a judge at the crown court on March 28.
But Judge Barker told Filer that the fact he was adjourning the case for a report and granting bail was “no indication” of what the ultimate sentence would be on that date.
