Me, a benefit cheat? Yes, but I was having an out of body experience at the time...

THE excuses given by benefit fraudsters make ‘the dog ate my homework’ look like child’s play, a list reveals.

One doctor, who was also a UFO expert, wrongly claimed £100,000 using several fake identities.

But it was all right, the man told officials – he took the money for ‘fellow agents’ because he was a spy working for MI5.

A builder claimed the top rate of Disability Living Allowance, intended for those who are ‘housebound’, while operating a JCB. He argued that this was perfectly fair, because he never walked a step out of his home – he was carried on and off the building site by a colleague.

A worker was confronted with a form he had filled out, claiming that he had no job. Luckily he had an explanation handy: he was in a trance, having an ‘out of body experience’, when he ticked the wrong box.

A woman on income support failed to mention winning £30,000 on game show Deal or No Deal. Her mother said it didn’t really count – because she had given it all away to a drug dealer. Another woman claimed to be a lone parent a few days after getting married. She said she had stopped loving her new husband, and after all, she had ‘to pay for the wedding buffet’ somehow.

Yet another ‘single’ mother said her husband didn’t live with the family, but in a tent at the bottom of their garden.

Her story became only slightly less believable when investigators pointed out that she didn’t have a garden.

‘Pitiable lengths

some go to’

Another told a court she did not report her husband for claiming tens of thousands of pounds of housing benefit by pretending to live alone, because ‘she always thought he was gay’.

A nightclub security guard said he did not think he had to declare his work because it was at night.

Another man hoped that fraud investigators would understand why he could not just stop falsely claiming housing benefit. You see, he owed his landlady some money – and she had taken to chasing him around the house in high heels, ‘ brandishing a sex toy’ and demanding ‘payment in kind’.

Finally, proving that sometimes the old lies are the best, one man actually told a judge his dog ate warning letters from the council.

It must have been a ‘very clever dog’, the judge remarked.

The list of creative excuses from the last year was released by the Department for Work and Pensions.

Benefit fraud costs taxpayers some £1billion a year, but almost all of that (£940million) was recovered last year, £40million more than the year before, the DWP said.

New rules mean that since April, 40 per cent of a fraudster’s gains can be reclaimed directly out of their future benefits. They also face higher fines of £2,000 to £5,000.

Work and pensions minister Mark Harper said: ‘These excuses underscore the pitiable lengths some people go to trying to justify what everyone knows is illegal behaviour.

‘Underneath the heightened sense of imagination of some of these people are hardened criminals who know their time is up.’ All the cases are now closed and the claimants’ benefits stopped.

Clare Norfolk, of the DWP’s fraud and error service, said: ‘Making up excuses will not help criminals avoid punishment.’