Former solicitor denies disability benefit fraud
AFORMER solicitor who was allegedly pictured sitting on a model train while claiming he was so unwell he could barely walk has gone on trial accused of benefit fraud.
Alan Blacker, 46, claimed to be in so much pain that he could not walk more than 20 yards without help, struggled to stand in the shower and found it hard to cut up food.
Between 1998 and 2016 he claimed Disability Living Allowance (DLA), claiming to be severely disabled and in extreme pain from a number of conditions, including fibromyalgia, spondylolisthesis and a heart murmur, the court heard.
But it is argued that the former solicitor, who was struck off in 2016, was actually far more mobile that he claimed.
He has gone on trial accused of failing to notify the Department for Work and Pensions ( DWP) of a change in his circumstances and dishonestly making statements about his physical capacity.
He denies the charges.
In one application for support, the jury was told Blacker, from Rochdale, wrote: “I cannot carry on a real life and everything is too much effort. I can’t do anything, I am in real pain.”
Victoria Hains, a clerk at Cardiff Crown Court, told the jury at Manchester’s Minshull Street Crown Court yesterday that she encountered Blacker when he was working as a barrister on a trial she was assigned to in August 2014.
She said she did not remember him having any difficulties standing up or sitting down while he was cross-examining witnesses, nor hav- ing any problems standing during a visit to the scene of an accident, a trip which lasted between 30 minutes and an hour, during the trial.
She said she recalled him asking the judge if he could take breaks during proceedings to take medication, but said that she only saw him take such a break on one occasion.
Representing Blacker, Dominic D’souza asked Ms Hains if she was aware that when he had asked for the break, it was so he could take morphine due to the level of pain he was in.
The witness said she was not aware this was the reason. The court also heard from a first-aid trainer, who led two courses attended by Blacker in 2009 and 2011.
During the courses he was required to demonstrate CPR on a mannequin and put a patient into the recovery position, both of which Blacker was said to have completed “without any trouble”.
Chloe Fordham, for the prosecution, told the court that evidence suggested Blacker’s issues with mobility were “nothing that came close” to what he suggested.
Witness John Breen, from the DWP in Blackpool, told the court that footage of Blacker, and statements from witnesses, were “clearly at odds” with his claim he put in.
When asked about a photograph supposedly of Blacker sitting with children on a model railway train, Mr Breen, who stopped Blacker’s benefits after an investigation in 2016, said: “He maintained it was a great effort to stand or get out of a chair, but he appeared to have no difficulty from the pictures.”
The case continues.