Man receiving disability benefits while working three jobs was overpaid £14,000

Adam Sedgwick, 51, was overpaid £14,133 in Personal Independence Payments (PIP) between September 2018 and August 2020, when the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) believed that he was confined to a wheelchair for four days a week.

Sedgwick, living in Worfield but previously of Telford, had made a legitimate claim for disability benefits having seriously injured his vertebrae in an accident involving a golf buggy, but failed to inform the DWP after he had recovered enough to go back to work.

In his initial claim, supported by a doctor, he said that he spent four days out of seven in a wheelchair, a court heard.

At Telford Magistrates Court on Wednesday Sedgwick pleaded guilty to dishonestly failing to notify the DWP of the change in his circumstances.

Prosecuting, Katie Price said that when Sedgwick was investigated between September 2018 and August 2020, he was found to be working for three separate employers, including a tractor company.

He has already paid back the £14,133 and more, the court heard.

Mitigating for Sedgwick, Stephen Meredith said: "This claim was not fraudulently made from the beginning.

"Mr Sedgwick spent several weeks in hospital after an accident in a golf buggy. A consultant supported his application for PIP.

"Mr Sedgwick thought that that was for a fixed or limited period that he would have had that payment.

"He accepts that he should have told them about his change in circumstances."

Mr Meredith said that Sedgwick had recovered from his serious injury and returned to the workplace through sheer "mental defiance", and that he was now working full-time.

Magistrates noted that Sedgwick has already paid back the money, and they imposed a conditional discharge for 24 months.

Chair of the bench Angela Channon also ordered him to pay court costs of £185.