BENEFIT cheat Paul Robins, who claimed thousands of pounds in benefits while working for The Co-operative group, has avoided an immediate prison sentence.
The 32-year-old was overpaid £38,331.67 in benefits while working for the group as a customer services assistant between September 1997 and November last year.
Tom Schofield, prosecuting for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), yesterday told Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court that Robins’s claim was genuine from the outset as he suffered from Russell-Silver syndrome; a disorder which involves poor growth, low birth weight, short height, and differences in the size of the two sides of the body.
