Ex-soldier wrongly took £29k benefits

Mervyn Smart spent 15 years in the armed forces, including a three-year tour of Northern Ireland, but he started claiming income support, housing and council tax benefit in 2002 despite having a £200-a-month pension, Wolverhampton Magistrates Court heard.

The 57-year-old said he believed he was allowed to keep receiving benefits as well as income.

He originally told the authorities that his initial benefit claims in 2002 had been genuine – but it later transpired his pension payments had started a year earlier when he was taken off the army's reserve list.

District judge Michael Wheeler told Smart that his sentence should be at least five months in prison.

But he instead decided to impose a 20-week sentence suspended for two years as he said Smart was "not a risk to society".

Smart, of Queen Street, Bilston, first claimed income support for himself and his wife in 2002, and then for himself alone in March last year, said Mrs Margaret Meeking, prosecuting.

She added: "Information came to light that he was in receipt of a pension that had not been declared." In total he was overpaid £29,436.

Mr Mahmood Hussain, defending, said: "Mistakenly he believed he didn't have to declare it."

Mr Hussain said his client had suffered strokes since 2003 and has diabetes and mobility problems. And Smart has also started paying the money back, he said.

Smart pleaded guilty to three charges of dishonestly making a false statement to obtain a benefit, and also a count of evading liability by not declaring his pension.

District Judge Michael Wheeler told him: "You claimed benefit when you were not entitled to. The starting point for your sentence is prison and I have to decide whether to suspend it.

"You are a low risk of re-offending and a low risk to society, so I see no reason to make you go to prison."