By Nick Fagge
A CHEATING councillor who got more than £2,000 in benefits while claiming she was too ill to get a job was caught working as a lollipop lady.
Last night Carol Todd, 60, was branded a disgrace for "cynically robbing taxpayers".
Todd, who said she had a bad back after suffering an industrial accident, claimed more than £250-a-month in disability allowance.
But she was convicted of fraud after magistrates were shown secret video footage of her working and undertaking vigorous physical tasks over an eight-month period.
The film showed Todd employed as a lollipop lady, taking dogs for a walk, cleaning out a car, putting petrol in a car and lifting heavy shopping bags.
And last week Todd, a Conservative councillor for Babergh District Council, in Suffolk, pleaded guilty to fraud at Sudbury Magistrates Court.
She was given a one-year conditional discharge and ordered to pay £100 costs.
Officials at the Department for Work and Pensions mounted the undercover operation and brought the prosecution after they discovered Todd pretended she could not work because she needed a walking stick.
Todd received over £40,000 in benefits since her first claim for disability allowance in April 1992. But she was only charged in relation to eight months while she was monitored by the DWP undercover officials.
Despite her conviction Todd, of Great Cornard, Suffolk, has refused to step down from the council.
She said: "I failed to report a change in my condition but it was just an accidental mistake. I never had any intention to defraud anyone and I have no intention of resigning." Babergh District Council yesterday admitted she cannot be forced out. A spokeswoman said: "The code of conduct for members presently only applies to a councillor acting in their official capacity.
"This is not, therefore, a standards issue as it relates to conduct in the councillor's private capacity.
"Changes are due to be implemented next year so that the code also applies to private conduct where a councillor is convicted of a criminal offence." But last night Matthew Elliott, of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "It is disgraceful that this woman cynically robbed the taxpayer without a thought for the harm she was doing.
"Anyone who steals money from hard-pressed taxpayers and deprives genuinely disabled people of much-needed support is beneath contempt – but someone in a responsible position doing so is even worse." Anti-fraud minister James Plaskitt urged whistleblowers to come forward.
He said: "Benefit cheats take money intended for the most vulnerable in our society. The public rightly get angry and with their support we will track down the fraudsters."
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