Wait a minute Mr Postman...
CONMAN ON DISABILITY BENEFIT
A CROOKED postman who pocketed more than £30,000 in disability benefits has been jailed after being caught delivering letters on his fivehour rounds.
Anthony Linaker, 46, claimed he was bedridden due to bad hips which left him struggling to dress himself or even go to the toilet without help.
But a court heard how he swindled a total of £33,087.55 in disability living allowance while working as a postie.
Department for Work and Pensions investigators filmed him in 2016 walking several miles a day on his rounds in Glossop, Derbys.
He had also uploaded pictures on Facebook digging holes on a beach with his family and had a season ticket at Manchester City.
Married dad-of-one Linaker, of Felixstowe, Suffolk, was jailed for six months at Derby Crown Court. Judge Jonathan Bennett criticised him for his lies.
Linaker had been claiming benefits from April 2009 to May 2017 due a long-standing condition with his hips and arthritis.
But after a hip replacement operation, he failed to notify the DWP in a change of circumstances. He has since lost his job. Linaker said he had been suffering from stress as a result of his mother’s death the previous year.
A DWP spokesman said after the sentencing: “Cases like these show how we are catching the minority who cheat the system.”