THE major health problems of an East Yorkshire benefit fraudster has saved him from a trip to jail for cheating the taxpayer out of nearly £20,000.

Derek Horseman needs to take painkillers daily and is nearly blind in one eye, York Crown Court heard. He did not tell Government and council benefit officers that his former partner was living with him, firstly in Fossway, York and later in Sutton-on-Derwent. Between December 2001 and July 2007, the 52-year-old man claimed £19,194.78 in income support, council tax benefit and housing benefit he was not entitled to.

Judge Robert Bartfield said: “People who commit benefit offences demonstrate a meanness towards the rest of the society, and dishonesty. It is really quite despicable. These offences justify a prison sentence.”

But after Horseman’s solicitor advocate Mark Partridge told him about the severe handicaps and medical conditions that require Horseman to take 20 medications daily, he suspended an eight-month prison sentence for 12 months on condition that Horseman is subject to a three-month nightly curfew.

Horseman, of Main Street, Sutton-on-Derwent, near Elvington, pleaded guilty to six charges of benefit fraud.

Mr Partridge said Horseman had an industrial accident in 1992 and his spine was fused three years later.