A fraudster claimed more than £40,000 worth of disability benefits while working full-time as a support worker.
Diane Halko, 55, held jobs at Angus Council and at one of the Dundee branches of children’s charity Aberlour – all while raking in thousands of pounds worth of benefits from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).
Halko, who used two walking sticks when she appeared at Dundee Sheriff Court, admitted carrying out the scam between May 2011 and December 2017.
Sentence was deferred on the Arbroath woman for reports with the Crown Office now hoping to retrieve some of the money through the Proceeds of Crime Act.
The court heard that a former colleague told the DWP that Halko exhibited no signs of any physical difficulties when working.
Halko was awarded disability living allowance as a result of injuries sustained from a crash in 2006.
However, fiscal depute Charmaine Gilmartin said Halko had failed to declare that there had been an improvement in her mobility and living.
She said: “The accused was a family support worker for Angus Council between 2011-2012 and was contracted to work 36.25 hours per week.
“The accused completed a review form in March 2012 and made no mention that she had been working full-time.
“The accused was then employed as a children’s worker with Aberlour working 22.5 hours per week. During her time there, she never asked for any disability car parking space or special aids.”
The former colleague who provided information to the DWP said that Halko would regularly walk unaided and said they only saw her use a crutch after a fall at home.
They said: “Over the period she worked for Aberlour, I did not consider her disabled in any way, shape or form.”
Halko, of Bloomfield Road, Arbroath, was later interviewed by DWP investigators and said she “forced herself” to walk rather than use a wheelchair.
She pleaded guilty to knowingly failing to notify the department of a change of circumstances to her entitlement to disability living allowance between May 25 2011 and December 12 2017 and did fraudulently obtain benefits worth £40,168.39.
Before deferring sentence on Halko for reports until July, Sheriff Lorna Drummond said: “That’s a lot of money, over £40,000 that you have defrauded the Department for Work and Pensions of.”
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