Spared jail...ex-council chief who swindled £6,000 benefits
A DISGRACED former Labour council leader escaped jail yesterday despite being exposed as a benefits cheat.
Robert Woodbridge, 59, falsely obtained nearly £6,000 after claiming he suffered so much pain that he could barely use the TV remote control.
But the ex-councillor was secretly filmed building a shed on his allotment. Woodbridge, who claimed he could walk “zero metres for zero minutes”, was caught on camera sawing planks of wood, pushing a wheelbarrow and lifting heavy items.
Surveillance footage taken by Department for Work and Pensions investigators on nine days between August and November 2015 also captured Woodbridge carrying shopping bags and pulling a vehicle trailer on to his driveway in Swanley, Kent.
And he was seen walking along roads and up and down flights of steps, with one walk lasting nearly 700ft.
Yesterday a judge at Maidstone Crown Court told Woodbridge his position as an ex-councillor meant he was “not your average benefit fraudster” and that he had betrayed the people he once represented.
Handing Woodbridge a four-month jail sentence suspended for a year, Judge David Griffith-Jones, QC said his dishonesty was “quite brazen”.
He said: “You were a man of some standing in the local community. You had been a councillor for many years and in your position within the community it may be said that you were, or should have been, something of a role model to others. By your actions you have betrayed those who were entitled to look up to and respect you.”
Woodbridge, who once headed Swanley Town Council in Kent, had denied being a benefits cheat by dishonestly failing to notify the DWP of a change of circumstances.
At a trial at in October it took a jury just 20 minutes to return a guilty verdict. The court heard that the former council leader, who suffered inflammatory arthritis, started claiming disability living allowance in 1997 but it was his renewal form completed in 2013 that led to an investigation.
Woodbridge, a councillor for 16 years, was paid at a higher rate of £140 a week after he stated he was in severe pain every day from the moment he woke. He said inflammation of his knees and ankles meant he was unable to stand alone.
He needed walking sticks along with a variety of support braces for his neck, hands, wrists and knees.
In a detailed claim form, Woodbridge stated he could not use a TV remote, struggled to turn on his computer and needed help to use the toilet. He told police after his arrest that he had “good days and bad days”, with his severity of pain and ability to move fluctuating.
As a result, he received an overpayment of £5,869 between August 2015 and January last year.
Prosecutor Edmund Fowler said at the trial: “The Crown say it was rather convenient that on each day he was filmed he was having a good day.”
Woodbridge will no longer be able to hold public office.