Man to appeal after losing home over carer's payments

A DWP appeal concluded George Henderson made “an innocent mistake”

A man who was prosecuted for claiming too much Carer’s Allowance is appealing against his conviction after an internal review concluded he had made “an honest mistake”.

George Henderson, from Walton-le-Dale in Lancashire, had been caring for his son, who has learning difficulties, and received overpayments for a decade after failing to declare income from his job as a taxi driver.

Mr Henderson denied fraud but was found guilty at a trial in 2018.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said it did not prosecute people for “innocent mistakes”.

Mr Henderson said the situation was “beyond belief” after he learned that a Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) tribunal had found his failure to disclose his income “was not done with fraudulent intent” in the same year that he had been convicted in a criminal court of fraud over the same overpayment.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Henderson said: “They’ve admitted there was no fraudulent intent, so why was I done for fraud?"

The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) confirmed an application from Mr Henderson had been received but added “it would be inappropriate for us to discuss the application or make any further comment at this stage”.

George Henderson, pictured in 2018, was forced to sell his house in Leyland

A judge at Preston Crown Court in 2018 ordered Mr Henderson to repay £19,500 to the DWP plus interest and costs because he had failed to declare his work as a taxi driver while claiming Carer's Allowance for six years.

He was given a suspended prison sentence and ordered to wear an electronic tag.

Mr Henderson was also forced to sell his home in Leyland to make the repayment.

Emily Lloyd, from the CPS in Merseyside and Cheshire, said the form that Mr Henderson would have used to claim Carer’s Allowance was “quite clear”.

She said the form asks: "Have you been employed at any time since six months before the date you want to claim?”

Ms Lloyd said: “The dishonesty test for the CPS is quite clear – would a reasonable person make this error?

"In both cases, the prosecutors did not believe so."

'Absolutely astounded'

Mr Henderson said that a DWP adviser did not tell him he had to declare the fact he was working as a taxi driver, adding: "I've ticked a box mistakenly and honestly incorrectly".

A DWP tribunal in 2018 - separate to Mr Henderson’s conviction - concluded his misrepresentation “was not done with fraudulent intent”.

It said: “It was more probable than not that you were telling the truth and the false declaration was an innocent mistake.”

The tribunal was considering the amount the department claimed Mr Henderson owed after he disputed it, but it upheld the original decision that he had been overpaid £19,506 because it said the department is “entitled” to recover benefits from people who had “fraudulently or otherwise” failed to disclose “a material fact”.

The tribunal found Mr Henderson to be a “convincing and credible witness”.

Mr Henderson said he was not informed of the tribunal’s decision until earlier this year when he received a letter from the department in response to a complaint he had made to Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride about the way his case had been dealt with.

Mr Henderson said he was “absolutely astounded” adding “but I knew there was no fraudulent intent in the first place”.

The DWP has been criticised for not acting on automatic alerts warning when Carer’s Allowance recipients may no longer be eligible for the benefit, allowing overpayments to build up in some cases for many years.

The DWP said it would be inappropriate to comment while an appeal was ongoing.

The CPS did not respond to a request for comment.