Robbie Williams tribute act walks free from court despite benefits scam
A Robbie Williams impersonator has walked free from court despite swindling £8,5000 of taxpayer's cash while belting out the star’s hits on the holiday island of Tenerife.
James Crockett, 43 falsely claimed incapacity benefits despite "strutting his stuff" as the Let Me Entertain You pop star on stage in Tenerife and the United Kingdom in 2012.
The impersonator, who also performed as crooner Michael Buble, had first started claiming incapacity benefit in 2004 after an operation on his back but he failed to tell the Department for Work and Pensions about his improved condition by 2012.
At a hearing in Bradford Crown Court today Crockett was spared jail - despite living the high life while pocketing taxpayers' money.
Judge Durham Hall told him:"All the while you were strutting your stuff on various stages in this country and abroad.
"Clearly your breach was particularly deliberate and wilful and the public are fed up and outraged when they pay their taxes, if they are lucky enough to have a job at all, and then see somebody living to some extent an interesting, if not high, life and pocketing £8,500."
Clearly your breach was particularly deliberate and wilful and the public are fed up and outraged when they pay their taxes, if they are lucky enough to have a job at all, and then see somebody living to some extent an interesting, if not high, life and p
The judge said he had intended to send Crockett to prison, but having considered the current sentencing guidelines a short jail term of about two months would be derisory.
Crockett, of Skipton in West Yorkshire, who has no previous convictions, underwent surgery for a serious back problem in 2002 and was nearly paralysed.
Prosecutor Emma Downing said that when he was initially questioned about his offending he denied being dishonest and said he was ignorant of the benefit system.
But the court heard that Crockett had eventually pleaded guilty to the charge at the earliest opportunity and he was now repaying the £8,463 he fraudulently claimed at the rate of £40 per month.
Judge Jonathan Durham Hall QC had warned Crocket at a hearing last month that he could be jailed for the offending, but today decided to impose a 12-month community order which includes 150 hours unpaid work and a three-month home curfew between 7pm and 7am.
Crockett will also have to pay costs of £200.
Barrister Charlotte Worsley, for Crockett, stressed that his benefit claim had not been fraudulent from the outset and he had now learned his lesson.
Miss Worsley said:"He is a man who has had some real health difficulties over the years."
She submitted that the offending was nearly three years ago now and added: "He is ashamed and embarrassed that he is before the courts today."
