You may remember a couple of weeks back there was a shocking case of benefit fraud where a 49-year-old woman had claimed PIP payments of £25,000 saying she was housebound, unable to walk for more than five minutes.
Unhelpfully for her defence the prosecution had video of her doing 10km runs, one of whom she did in a creditable one hour and three minutes.
She was packed off to jail for seven months but I felt her case highlighted the fact that we don’t spend enough money on investigation (there are 3.8 million now claiming Personal Independence Payments) as it would scare off the fraudsters plus keep the PIP cheats always looking over their shoulders.
Unless, of course, they were claiming for a neck complaint.
But I didn’t realise the half of it until I read a stunning piece in the Daily Telegraph from a doctor who has sat on the benefits tribunal for 30 years.
A massive eye-opener where idle judges and cunning claimants are costing us a fortune – and nobody cares.
The first thing I learned about these tribunals is that they are not under any obligation to tell the truth – there is no ‘’oath’’. They can lie through their back teeth and won’t face any retribution.
The doctor says both he and the judge would often see the claimant down in the car park. Walking in a sprightly manner to the main entrance 100 yards away.
Kelvin Mackenzie claims Labour doesn't care about benefits fraudsters
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Thirty minutes later, that same person would be declaring to the benefits panel (a judge, the doctor and social worker) that they could walk no more than 50 yards and needed PIP to lead a normal life.
Even when the judge and doctor had seen them walking from the car park, they would say: ‘’O, today is one of my good days.’’ And there was no way of disproving that. And the claimant knew it.
Some would look fit and healthy, but would say: ‘’I can’t clean my teeth in the morning because I’m too tired.’’ Or: "My mum has to come in to cook my dinner because I’m too exhausted to do it myself.’’
Those excuses were mainly for those who said they were suffering from fibromyalgia (apparently, a well-recognised condition) but one the doctor says can be spurious and hard to prove.
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It was the same with ADHD. Barely anyone, says the doctor, came to the tribunal with a proper diagnosis apart from what they self-diagnosed online.
The claimants would wise up all the time. To receive mobility allowance, you used to have to say you couldn’t walk more than 50 metres.
When that was reduced to 20 metres they would say they could only walk 20 metres... and so on.
The next trick would be if they actually failed the tribunal which was ever becoming rarer as the judges became more and more liberal plus the claimants would ask the judge for a full description of why they had failed and the judge was obliged to provide it.
This meant the claimants had been furnished with all the mistakes they had made in their evidence so they wouldn’t make the same mistakes again. They knew they would appeal and now they would be briefed properly.
What’s more, the judges were only paid a very small amount for this very lengthy document, so there was an incentive for them to wave through the claim to avoid another appeal.
Not long before the doctor retired the Employment and Support Allowance, introduced for those finding it difficult to work because of medical conditions, was becoming increasingly popular.
For whatever reason, it was often Asian women in their 50s, who had never worked, who tried to claim it.
Is there any political party prepared to fight to keep hold of our money. Over to you Mr Farage. If not you, who? - Kelvin Mackenzie asks
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Other benefits would cascade own: Blue Badge, housing support, Universal Credit. It was quite unbelievable.
What is clear from this dreadful list of deceit is that we haven’t got a handle on the money flowing out, in many cases, to fraudsters.
Nobody cares. Not Labour for certain. Not the Tories before them. Is there any political party prepared to fight to keep hold of our money. Over to you Mr Farage. If not you, who?