A 69-year-old man defrauded the Department of Social Protection of more than €258,000 by pretending for 14 years that his dead wife was still alive, a court heard on Friday.
The fraud involving Thomas Leniston, a former London bus driver, now resident at Cashel Park, Castlebar, Co Mayo, was uncovered last year when the Revenue Commissioners investigated a joint bank account in the names of the accused and his late wife, Patricia.
Revenue noted there was more than €100,000 in the account. This information was relayed to the Department of Social Protection, who carried out an investigation.
19 sample charges
At Castlebar Circuit Criminal Court, Leniston pleaded guilty to 19 sample charges of fraud and larceny between August 2000 and March 2014.
Det Garda Hugh O’Donnell told the court that Leniston continued to collect carers allowance, disability allowance and respite care allowance in respect of his wife, despite the fact she died in July 2000.
The monies were collected weekly at Castlebar Post Office.
Det Garda O’Donnell outlined there were 707 weekly disability payments totalling €116,743.50; 701 weekly carers allowance payments totalling €125,524.50; and 13 annual respite grant payments totalling €16,287.90, giving a cumulative total of €258,555.70.
The Garda witness explained that when the accused was detained at Castlebar Garda station, he was forthright in his interviews.
He said that each week, he went into Castlebar Post Office and handed over his and his wife’s social welfare card, and got the various payments in cash.
Det Garda O’Donnell said Leniston told him he was looking after his elderly mother-in-law (90) and had some health concerns himself.
He added that he felt he was entitled to some payments, but should have regularised these matters after the death of his wife.
Cross-examined by Michael Bowman, counsel for the accused, the garda witness said Leniston and his wife, who had Crohn's Disease, had moved from London to Castlebar in 1995 in the hope she would have a better quality of life there.
Det Garda O’Donnell agreed with Mr Bowman, counsel for Leniston, that the defendant was quiet, inoffensive, did not drink and lived a completely unostentatious lifestyle.
‘Truly enormous’
Mr Bowman agreed the sums involved were “truly enormous”, but maintained “this was a sin of omission as opposed to somebody who engaged in a calculated scheme of deception”.
Mr Bowman said the accused had a considerable sum of money in the bank, which was not ill-gotten gain but resulted from the sale of a family home in 2006.
The court was told Leniston was willing to pay €80,000 in compensation to the department.
In his summing up, Judge MacCabe said the accused had told the probation and welfare services he forgot to notify the appropriate authorities of his wife’s death.
Extraordinary duration
The judge described the fraud as one of extraordinary duration.
He said it would not be in the interests of justice to send Leniston to jail immediately, as this would involve additional expense to the taxpayer and rule out the possibility that the department would recover any more of their loss.
The judge, who noted that Leniston’s mother-in-law was dependent on him, imposed a suspended two-year prison sentence on each of the sample charges to which the defendant had pleaded guilty.
In addition, the judge ruled that the part compensation of €80,000 offered by the defendant be paid to the Department of Social Protection.