£72,000 ‘benefit cheat’ is caught out winning a gold medal at karate

A WOMAN who claimed £72,000 in benefits by allegedly posing as an asthma sufferer was filmed winning a gold medal for karate, a court heard yesterday.

Black belt Claire Thomas, 46, triumphed in the contest despite claiming she was too ill to go out alone.

Investigators also saw her smoking in a “mobility” car bought with £4,000 of taxpayers’ money.

Thomas allegedly claimed she was stricken with brittle asthma, high blood pressure and diabetes.

She was classed as disabled after telling officials she always needed someone with her outdoors in case of an asthma attack. “It’s always lurking, waiting to strike when it wants, taking the air that I breathe,” Thomas had told the Department for Work and Pensions.

But she still managed to get to karate classes three or four times a week, Gloucester Crown Court heard.

Wearing her karate whites, she smoked in her “mobility” car before walking to her club at a “normal pace without catching her breath,” jurors were told.

Undercover investigators filmed Thomas as she competed in a tournament at Birmingham in June 2013.

Tim Hills, prosecuting, said: “There Claire Thomas outside court yesterday, right, and, left, the black belt in her karate outfit posing in triumph was a regional qualifier taking place and she was filmed taking part, winning a medal, and then kissing her husband.”

Jurors watched clips from the surveillance film showing Thomas with gold and bronze medals round her neck.

She was also paid income support after claiming she was single with a child, the court heard.

In fact, she was in a “common household” with her husband, full-time lorry driver Kevin Thomas, it was alleged. The electoral roll showed them living together at the same address, said Mr Hills.

Applying to buy a Lexus car, they told a finance company they were married and living together, he added. Investigator Judith Merryman said: “If she was living with a partner, she would not be entitled to income support.”

Thomas, of Gloucester, denies seven charges of benefit fraud between June 2007 and December 2013.

She was allegedly paid £72,000 in benefits she was not entitled to including £4,256 towards the cost of her “mobility” car. Jason Coulter, defending, told the court that Thomas belongs to a disabled friendly karate organisation.

The trial continues.