Skip lorry collision causes £200,000 bridge damage

Serial fraudster jailed for ticket compensation scam

EMERGENCY repairs costing more than £200,000 had to be made to a bridge in Leamington Spa after it was hit by a skip lorry on March 20.

The collision caused significant damage to the bridge’s central arch, forcing the temporary closure of the railway above and a much longer closure of the road below.

A MAN British Transport Police described as a serial fraudster has been jailed for two years after defrauding train operators out of around £40,000 over a five-year period.

Thomas Ingram, 34, from Blackpool, carried out a sophisticated and pre-meditated fraud, initially using the chargeback scheme, before moving to the Delay Repay compensation system to claim back cash for journeys he had never made.

He produced and printed hundreds of fake tickets from his home address, for which he claimed compensation from nine different train operators.

BTP say the claims totalled £130,000, with Ingram submitting hundreds of claims over a prolonged period, using more than 40 aliases and false addresses.

BTP financial investigators managed to trace the fraudulent pay outs made through a series of personal and alias PayPal accounts back to Ingram’s own accounts.

More than £7,300 in cash was seized from his home when Ingram was arrested.

He was ordered to repay the train operating companies he had defrauded.

A number of printers, laptops and other items used by

Ingram were sold to pay more compensation.