£81k benefits cheat ‘ barely able to walk’ is caught snorkelling
SnORkeLLInG in the crystal clear waters off the Maldives, Linda Hoey was clearly having an action-packed holiday.
But this photo exposed her as a benefits cheat – as she had claimed that she was too disabled to walk more than a metre a minute.
The 58-year- old mother of four swindled £81,000 in handouts over 14 years after claiming that degenerative arthritis and other back problems left her struggling to walk, unable to stretch her arms above her head and with no chance of working.
Yet she had actually had a full-time job since 1997 and led an active life.
She fraudulently claimed £65,244 in Disability Living allowance and used her car – which she got for free – to avoid paying £15,690 in M6 toll charges, as disabled people are exempt.
But after the Department for Work and Pensions received a tip-off, police raided Hoey’s home and found the picture of her snorkelling, as well as others of her quad-biking during the holiday in 2013, which was to celebrate her 20th wedding anniversary with husband Michael. In another picture she stretches her hands above her head while lazing on a hammock. Officers also found pictures of her kneeling to alter her daughter’s wedding dress and playing pool.
Inquiries revealed she was a member of a gym, had gone on holiday to egypt the year before, and had been attending regular swimming and badminton lessons.
Officers had also spotted her walking down the stairs to answer the door and found her home had not been adapted for her supposed disability during their raid on February 24 last year.
Hoey, of Tamworth in Staffordshire, was found guilty at Stafford Crown Court of misrepresenting her benefit claim between 2001 and 2015, and misusing an exemption pass for the M6 toll road between 2004 and 2015.
Prosecutor anthony Cartin said: ‘She had been working full-time from 1997 in a desk job doing the exact thing she said she could not do without pain – sitting for a long time in the same position.
‘She has lied and exaggerated, cheating you, me and the public out of money.’
Then, turning to Hoey, he said: ‘You have some health issues but you exaggerated the impact on your daily life because you know what you have to say to get disability living allowance.’
Stewart Halstead, Hoey’s former boss at car accessory supplier PartsWorld, which she
‘Cheating the public out of money’
left in 2014, said he was unaware of any health problems and had never seen her use a stick.
He said she would regularly walk up and down stairs with trays of hot drinks.
Hoey, who filed her first form for Disability Living allowance in 1995 and successfully made an appeal for more money in april 2005, told the court: ‘My mobility has got worse.
‘I cannot walk without severe discomfort but perhaps I could have explained things a lot better on the forms I filled in.’
Hoey was ordered to return to court in September for sentencing. a DWP spokesman said: ‘Only a small minority of people try to cheat the benefits system, but cases like this show how we are rooting out those who are stealing taxpayers’ money and diverting it away from the people who really need it.’