Snack bar benefits cheat goes behind bars

Jun 11 2009 by Alistair Watson, West Lothian Courier

A BENEFITS cheat who told social security staff he couldn’t work as he was too scared to leave his house was caught running his own snack bar.

James Quay defrauded tax payers out of £12,000 as he claimed income support and incapacity benefit for more than four years while running his own business.

Senior procurator fiscal depute Helen McCannell told Linlithgow Sheriff Court Quay had said to Jobcentre officials he had a “fear of the world beyond his own front door”.

She added: “He said he did not want to go out because of obsessive compulsive behaviour.”

But benefit cheat investigators found Quay had been out of his house every day as he operated a snack bar at Oakbank Industrial Estate in Livingston.

The court also heard the 52 year old, who was the sole trader of J&A Snacks, had made no effort to repay the fraudulent claims.

Quay, whose address was given as Chapleton Drive, Polbeth, pleaded guilty to making the fraudulent claim from January 2003, to September 2007.

His solicitor, Ian Bryce, told the court his client was now repaying some of the money.

“He is having £4.80 a week taken from his income support to pay back the Department of Work and Pensions,” Mr Bryce said.

“He is someone who has significant psychological issues.

“I share the author of the social enquiry report’s concern about how he could cope with a period in custody.

“On that basis, on his behalf, I accept that probation with a fairly substantial punitive part to it will be required as an alternative.

“He is someone who is very scared indeed of going to prison and in the past has put something into the community by means of his military record.”

But Sheriff Thomas Ward said he has no other option but to jail Quay for what he called a “systematic fraud”.

Jailing him for four months Sheriff Ward said: “You were telling social security people that you were unfit for work and you defrauded the state out of £12,000.

“It seems to me that strikes at the very root of the system, which you manipulated to your own ends.

“You were not even working for someone else but working as a sole trader, operating a snack bar while lifting incapacity benefit and income support.

“I feel there is no other way to deal with you other than a custodial sentence.”