A COUPLE raked in thousands of pounds in benefits for hardship and disability - while they had £180,000 in the bank and took out gym memberships, a court heard today.

Former police officer Vaughan Dodds said his ME left him housebound at times and his wife Mandy's illnesses made her sensitive to the slightest noise.

As an appointee for his wife, he told the Department for Work and Pensions that even the sound of toilet tissue being ripped from a roll was too much to bear.

Mr Dodds said she was unable to cope with the noise of conversation, the crackling of bed linen could wake her up, and they had to sound-proof their home.

In official forms he filled in for Disability Living Allowance, Income Support and housing benefit, the 45-year-old also claimed they were living apart.

Yet an undercover investigation by fraud-busters is said to have shown how:

* they went on numerous holidays with their two children as a family;

* made payments totalling almost £35,000 to health and beauty salons;

* they both went on motorcycle training courses, and to a Durham gym;

* spent more than £25,000 at hotels and restaurants in six years; and

* their children - a son and a daughter - went to fee-paying schools.

Prosecutor Graham O'Sullivan told Teesside Crown Court: "The prosecution make no bones about it. We say this money was dishonestly obtained.

"We say it was used by Mr Dodds and his family, his wife, to fund a comfortable lifestyle - a lifestyle this couple could not otherwise have afforded."

Mr O'Sullivan told the jury that the ex-cop was left £250,000 in his father's will in 2007, along with his £160,000 house in Spennymoor, County Durham.

The prosecutor said means-tested benefits such as Income Support and Council Tax relief were not awarded to claimants with more than £16,000 of capital.

Disability Living Allowance is paid to people who need help with mobility or care, and is not based on a person's earnings or savings, the court heard.

Mr O'Sullivan said none of the 12 officials involved in 40 days of surveillance on the couple saw Mr Dodds use a walking stick or a wheelchair.

He said Mrs Dodds was watched visiting the MetroCentre with her daughter, and was apparently seen blow-drying someone's hair at a salon on one occasion.

Mr Dodds, of Gardner's Place, Langley Moor, near Durham, is on trial for allegedly dishonestly claiming more than £55,000 between April 2005 and December 2009.

He denies 12 charges, says he and his wife did separate several times but reconciled, and gave accurate descriptions of both of their physical capabilities.

In an interview with police in 2012, Mr Dodds said he had been holding his inheritance on trust, and had been asked to use it for his children's schooling.

Mr O'Sullivan said most of the bequeathed money was "frittered away" and told the jury: "The Crown say these benefits were obtained fraudulently, dishonestly."

The trial continues.