A BENEFITS CLAIMANT lived it up at rock concerts and music festivals while supposedly housebound, recovering from a road accident.

Joy Taylor’s original claim was legitimate, with her mother Linda her nominated carer, having suffered a serious leg injury in the accident, in September 2007.

Durham Crown Court heard that Taylor recovered, but continued making the claims, while enjoying a full and active social life, attending concerts and camping at music festivals.

Mark Styles prosecuting, said on the Crown’s case the pair received up to a £95,000 over-payment, but even according to the defence admissions it was above £70,000.

The Northern Echo:

The claims were made on the basis Taylor senior was providing an average 135-hours’ of assistance a month to help her daughter with day-to-day living, receiving an average payment of about £1,500 per month.

Mr Styles said it emerged Joy Taylor regularly transferring sums from the account, which should have been used solely for care purposes, but which went into her current account for other expenditure.

Inquiries, including postings on her own social media account, revealed she was a regular concert-goer and attender of music festivals round the country.

A week after she was assessed as still severely disabled, she posed outside the Stadium of Light, at a Kings of Leon concert, in June 2011.

But, when questioned, in September 2014, she claimed her mother set everything up and she did not know why all the money was given to her, so she decided to spend it on clothes and other personal expenditure, having only recently begun to recover.

When confronted with photographic evidence of her festival-going, she tried to pass the blame on to her mother, but accepted her dishonesty and said she should have stopped the payments from 2009.

Linda Taylor initially made denials, telling investigators she was, “run ragged” looking after her daughter, but later conceded the claims were bogus from around 2009, but she regarded the payments as, “a bonus”.

Joy Taylor, 32, of Elmfield Place, and her 64-year-old mother, of Anne Swift Road, both Newton Aycliffe, each admitted making false representation to make gain.

Liam O’Brien, for Joy Taylor, said the claim began legitimately, but she was “ham-fisted” maintaining it, displaying a degree of “naivety” with her social media postings.

But he added that the mother of a six-year-old son is of otherwise good character.

The Northern Echo:

Andrew Petterson, for Linda Taylor, said although it was not a fraudulent claim from the outset, it was aggravated by the time it went on.

Mr Petterson said Taylor has an “excellent work record” and hopes to make recompense from proceeds of a house sale.

Judge Simon Hickey described it was “deliberate defrauding” of the public purse over a period of time.

He said it carried on due to the defendants’ “pure greed”, and while both deserved custody, he could suspend sentence, purely because Joy Taylor’s son would suffer.

She was given a 14-month sentence, suspended for a year, during which she must undergo probation supervision, plus an eight-week, 8pm - 7am, home curfew.

Linda Taylor was given a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for a year.

The Bishop of Manchester called for benefit cheats to be allowed to get away with it so that innocent people are not punished with sanctions during a debate at the Conservative Party conference yesterday.

The Rt Rev David Walker said: ""We have to let a few manipulative people get away with it if we're not going to have too many innocent people punished. I don't think we can put the burden of proof so far over to making sure nobody ever pulls one over our eyes that we trap lots of innocent people.

"I think we've got that balance wrong at the moment."

The bishop was speaking at a party conference fringe meeting in Manchester.