Talking Turkey: Benefit Fraudster Exposed

YOU think you’ve got away with the crime of the century. Then, as your coach motors on to a sunny location, the driver loses control and the vehicle nearly plummets down a rocky ravine.

Suddenly, you’re in trouble.

That may sound like the final act of The Italian Job, but for Barry Marsh, it was the beginning of the end of a lucrative deception.

Marsh, from Portsmouth was on holiday in Turkey with his family when the coach he was travelling by overturned. The 45-year-old, who was apparently living on £82-a-week benefits due to a “bad back”, then spoke to a local newspaper about his holiday ordeal.

However, poor old Barry somewhat lost the run of himself and let slip to the journalist that he had, in fact, visited Turkey regularly over the past seven years and that he loved sipping cocktails in the evening.

When Jobcentre staff back in Portsmouth read about Marsh’s sun-loving activities, a fraud inquiry was immediately instigated.

The Department of Work and Pensions eventually found that the builder had thousands of pounds stashed away in secret bank accounts and thousands more hidden at his house. He had also set up home with the wage-earning Tracy Johnson, despite claiming to live alone.

Marsh now faces the possibility of jail, where he won’t get many opportunities to sip on a cocktail, when he is sentenced next month.

Anorak

Posted: 10th, July 2007 | In: Money Comments (3) | Follow the Comments on our RSS feed: RSS 2.0 | TrackBack | Permalink