Rastamouse creator spared jail for benefits fraud... after judge says his daughter is a fan!
THE creator of CBeebies’s crimefighting rodent Rastamouse was spared jail for benefits fraud after a judge’s young daughter urged him to be lenient.
Michael de Souza, 64, admitted wrongly receiving thousands in state handouts after devising the hit stopmotion character who seeks to ‘spread love and respect’ with his band Da Easy Crew.
But faced with a possible prison sentence, the award-winning writer was offered a reprieve after a judge said his eight-yearold daughter was a fan of the show.
After De Souza admitted two benefits fraud charges at Southwark Crown Court, Judge Christopher Hehir said: ‘Not even Da Easy Crew can get him out of this one.’ Sentencing him to 160 hours of community service, the judge added: ‘I’ve got young children and I used to be a fan of Rastamouse. I did tell my eight-year-old daughter, who was a big fan when she was younger, that De Souza was appearing before me, and she wasn’t keen on a custodial sentence.
‘For the avoidance of doubt, I don’t usually run sentences past my young children,’ he said.
De Souza admitted hiding earnings linked to his writing while also claiming £3,581 in Jobseeker’s Allowance and £5,186 in housing benefit between January and December 2017.
Low-level benefits fraud in the range committed by De Souza can carry a maximum sentence of 26 weeks in jail, according to the Sentencing Council.
The grandfather moved to the UK from Trinidad in 1960 and became a mechanical engineer.
He developed Rastamouse in 1999 during a 15-year period as a swimming instructor, teaching the children of A-listers Stella McCartney and Sir Richard Branson. De Souza self-published the first Rastamouse book with illustrator Genevieve Webster in 2003.
The series details how the cheese-loving rodent combines his love of reggae music with solving problems for Da President of Mouseland. The story was snapped up and turned into a stop-motion animation for the BBC in 2011, with presenter Reggie Yates voicing the lead character.
The skateboarding mouse speaks in Jamaican patois and uses the catchphrase: ‘Makin’ a bad ting good.’ More than 100 episodes of the programme were made for the BBC between 2011 and 2015. Upon its release, the BBC received complaints that the programme encouraged the use of slang, while members of the Caribbean community said it perpetuated negative stereotypes.
Viewers also suggested that Rastamouse’s beloved cheese was a reference to cannabis.
The BBC said the character’s Afro-Caribbean patois rhyme had been carried over from the books to ‘retain its heart, integrity and distinctive quality’.
Despite the huge success of the programme, the court heard how De Souza had fallen into debt due to several failed business ventures after selling the rights to the TV character. In 2015, De Souza opened a small Rastamouse shop in Peckham, south London, while the character has been used in a live show and even appeared at the Glastonbury festival.
The judge said: ‘It is a great shame that a man of your undoubted talents, which I’ve been able to observe for myself through the medium of the TV show Rastamouse, finds himself before the crown court for a matter of this sort.’ Prosecutor Sasha Queffurus said De Souza had claimed to have been out of paid work in two oral conversations and two written declarations with officials in 2017.
But the court heard how De Souza, who became a Rastafarian in 1979, was receiving income from speaking events at the time.
Dickon Edwards, representing De Souza, said this was ‘a very irregular source of income’.
De Souza, of west London, denied two charges of dishonestly failing to notify a change in circumstances in April but changed his plea this week.
‘Not even Da Easy Crew can get him out of this’