Karate champ ‘claimed £72k in benefits for being disabled’
A WOMAN who claimed £72,000 in disability benefits was caught winning a gold medal in a karate contest, a court heard yesterday.
Black belt Claire Thomas, 46, said she suffered from asthma, diabetes and high blood pressure and could barely walk.
Yet she was doing karate training up to four times a week, as well as competing in tournaments, the jury heard.
Prosecuting, Tim Hills said that Mrs Thomas had been classed as disabled by the Department of Work and Pensions in 2007.
She continued to claim benefits for the next six years. During that time she was paid about £72,000 in handouts, including £4,256 towards a mobility car, the court heard.
But when she won a bronze and a gold regional medal in karate in 2013, the fraud team launched an investigation. In a surveillance operation, they filmed Mrs Thomas ‘smoking a cigarette out of a car window, and then attending a karate class’.
Mr Hills told Gloucester Crown Court: ‘There was then a regional qualifier taking place in Birmingham and she was filmed taking part, winning a medal, and then kissing her husband.’
Investigators saw her walking to and from her car at normal speed and without any sign of difficulty or shortness of breath, he said.
DWP fraud investigator Judith Merryman told the court that during surveillance Mrs Thomas, who is accused of failing to notify the DWP of her improved condition, was seen ‘walking to and from her car without stopping or catching her breath’.
She added: ‘She went to a karate club at Brockworth, near Gloucester, on May 23, 2013. She was observed wearing karate whites, smoking cigarettes in her mobility car, and observed walking across the car park to the club.
She walked across the car park at a quick pace with no obvious discomfort for about 100 yards.
Mrs Merryman added that she was told by the karate club that the defendant trained ‘three to four times a week’.
At that stage ‘the benefit was stopped and an overpayment was calculated’.
Mrs Thomas is also accused of living with her husband, Kevin, despite claiming benefits as a single mother. Mr Hills told the jury there was evidence from the electoral roll and a finance application for a car that Mr and Mrs Thomas lived together and that she was not a lone parent as she claimed.
But when the defendant was interviewed about the allegations in October 2013, ‘she continued to maintain she was single and unable to work’.
Mr Hills added: ‘She said that Mr Thomas was of no fixed abode, a sofa surfer. She said she allowed him to stay for a month because of his tummy trouble.’
Mrs Thomas, from Gloucester, denies seven charges of benefit fraud between June 2007 and December 2013.
The trial continues.