FIRST HE SAID HE WAS A LORD, THEN CLAIMED TO BE DISABLED
A“DELUDED fantasist” who claimed to be a lord while working as a solicitor in Cardiff has now been found guilty of pretending to be disabled to claim benefits.
Alan Blacker, 47, was told by a judge that he was a “dishonest man” after pictures emerged of him helping to build a model railway and moving around easily, while claiming £60,280 in disability living allowance.
It is the latest revelation in the fantastist’s career of deception. While working as a solicitor in Cardiff, he wore bogus St John ambulance medals, claimed to be called Lord Harley and was later struck off for having a 20-page CV filled with fantasy claims.
A string of reputable people and organisations including Cambridge University, the Zoological Society, the British Army, Members of Parliament and Rochdale council were baffled by Harley’s claims to have worked for them or been honoured by them.
His lies first unravelled in 2014 when Judge David Wynn Morgan at Cardiff Crown Court took him to task for his odd clothes, saying he looked like something out of Harry Potter. At the time, Blacker was calling himself Dr The Right Honourable The Lord Harley of Counsel of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem.
The Manchester Evening News reported that Blacker appeared in Minshull Street Crown Court on Friday where he was found guilty of dishonesty receiving £60,280 in overpayment of disability living allowance.
The court heard that despite claiming he could barely walk, investigators from the Department for Work and Pensions found he was walking without support and climbing stairs without discomfort.
Blacker, from Rochdale, who also goes by the name Lord Harley, was seen helping to build a model railway, completed a first aid training course and was seen walking around Rochdale town centre and in a cafe without support.
Further evidence that led to him being caught was when he became “particularly elated” when appearing as a lawyer in Cardiff Crown Court, when prosecutors said he moved “with ease” around the court building.
“Those were not the actions of a man in excruciating daily pain,” Judge Paul Lawton told Blacker.
The judge accepted Blacker does have disabilities and his initial application for disability living allowance was genuine, but said he later “completely exaggerated” them.
“You knew the system well and exploited it in a calculated manner to your own advantage,” the judge told Blacker. As a practising solicitor, Blacker had advised people about claims and appeals of disability living allowance.
None of the benefits money has been repaid, prosecutor Chloe Fordham said. Blacker has been declared bankrupt and was previously struck off as a solicitor.
The judge said that during Blacker’s trial, he repeatedly tried to give the jury the impression that he was still of “good standing” as a lawyer.
While knowing the DWP was onto him, Blacker tried to persuade a witness not to give evidence at court by saying it would be an “extremely unpleasant” experience for him. Blacker was “fortunate” to avoid a count of witness intimidation, the judge said.
At trial Blacker told jurors that the DWP was “conspiring” to convict him because of his “success” against them working as a benefits appeals lawyer. The judge described this as “utter desperation by a man confronted with the truth”.
“One thing you plainly failed to grasp in your legal education, Mr Blacker, is that the rule of law applies to us all,” Judge Lawton told Blacker.
“It has no preferences or favourites, and those who abuse it are inevitably found out, as you were.”
Blacker initially made his genuine claim in 1997, where he said he could barely walk, and even then only in significant pain.
But by the time he completed a review form in 2011 in which he repeated those claims, his disability “bore no resemblance” to that, the judge said. He frequently walked around without an aid, and was also a governor at a primary school in Rochdale.
The DWP recorded covert footage of Blacker walking without help to prove he was exaggerating his disabilities.
In November, Blacker, of Milk Street, Rochdale, was found guilty of dishonestly making a false statement to the DWP to maintain his benefits. Now he has received a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.
The judge said he could spare Blacker jail because his claim was initially legitimate, his offending stopped five years ago and he has not committed further crimes, and that the disabilities he does suffer from would cause him difficulties if he were sent to prison.
Defending, Dominic D’Souza said Blacker had done an “awful lot for an awful lot of people”.
He has assisted more than 7,500 clients on a pro-bono basis, Mr D’Souza claimed.
Blacker, who has a previous conviction of being unqualified while acting as a solicitor, turned up to court in a wheelchair, and sat in it outside the dock before his case was called on.
After the judge entered court, he told Blacker to go and sit in the dock. Blacker moved with the aid of a walking stick.
After the hearing a DWP spokesman said: “Benefit fraud is a crime that diverts money from those who really need it. In addition to any sentence imposed by the court, people must pay back all the money they falsely obtained.
“We have zero tolerance of anyone fraudulently claiming benefits and take swift action to investigate, supporting our partners and prosecutors to bring them to justice.”