Disability benefits cheat caught completing 5km runs has sentence cut by appeal judges

A benefits cheat who was filmed on 5km runs after claiming she struggled to walk has had her jail sentence cut by appeal judges.

Former care worker Annette Bond, 50, received a total of £67,062 in benefits that she was not entitled to over a nine-year period before she became a target for fraud investigators.

They filmed her as she was out running regular circuits in the area of her home in Stanley, in Perthshire, and a prosecution was later brought against Bond.

Bond, of Shielhill Park, Stanley, was jailed for two years earlier this year after she was found guilty of committing the benefit fraud between April 1 2009 and November 27 in 2018.

She knowingly failed to give prompt notification to the Department of Work and Pensions of a change in circumstances that affected her entitlement to disability allowance enhanced care and enhanced mobility.

She failed to report that her physical abilities and the support she required had changed from what she initially declared in her benefit application.

A fraud investigation team set up secret surveillance to capture Annette Bond running around 5,000 metre circuits from her home in Stanley, Perthshire, up to four times a week. Crown Office

A sheriff told her that she must have known that she did not meet the criteria for the benefits she was receiving.

Sheriff William Wood said: “Your conduct can only be characterised as a prolonged and egregious course of dishonesty, for which there is no excuse.”

He said she had defrauded the state of a large sum and deprived the taxpayer of funds that might have been usefully spent elsewhere.

But lawyers acting for Bond challenged the length of the sentence imposed on her and judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh reduced her jail term to 18 months.

Lord Matthews, who heard the appeal with Lord Armstrong, said the appellant was a first offender whose condition appeared to be variable.

He said they were satisfied the sheriff overemphasised what he saw as aggravating features of the case and would quash the sentence imposed on her and substitute the shorter jail term.

Bond’s solicitor advocate Iain Paterson KC told the appeal judges: “In my submission the two year period of imprisonment selected by the sheriff was excessive.”

He said she was originally diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and continued to have underlying health conditions. Mr Paterson added that the claim she made was not fraudulent from the outset.

“There was a requirement for her to go back if her health improved. This was something which she did not do,” he told the court.

He said Bond was initially sent to prison in Stirling but had faced difficulties there because of her health conditions, but has since been transferred to a centre in Dundee.

Bond followed the sentencing appeal proceedings from the Bella Centre on a TV link to court as she sat with a walking stick.

Bond made a claim for benefits stating that she preferred someone with her at all times when she was outdoors because she had poor balance and was at risk of dizzy spells and falling.