Benefit fraudster part-owned $1m of property

A Whangamata man fights benefit overpayment but has $1m worth of property. Photo / APN

A Whangamata man who pleaded guilty to fraudulently obtaining nearly $110,000 worth of benefit payments wrote a cheque to repay the money and was discovered to part-own $1 million worth of property.

Graham Herbert Taylor, 56, pleaded guilty at the North Shore District Court in May to two charges of using a document to obtain a pecuniary advantage, after he was found to have received benefit overpayments between 2000 and 2009.

Taylor said he claimed the invalid benefit, accommodation supplement and disability allowance to help him look after his 87-year-old mother, Margaret, a stroke and heart attack victim.

Taylor suffers from frontal lobe damage to his brain, caused by years of exposure to chemicals as a factory worker.

Since 2000, Taylor has received $109,059.93 from benefits, which he "truly" believed he was entitled to.

However, he was discovered to be part-owner of three properties - with a total value of nearly $1 million - and he also neglected to inform the Ministry of Social Development of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of cash assets.

Taylor said he believed any money he and his mother had was tied up in trusts, and was not available to them.

Surprisingly, Taylor has already repaid his $110,000 debt to the ministry by writing out a cheque, which is understood to have raised eyebrows within the ministry.

Taylor is due to be sentenced in the Thames District Court on Tuesday.

The police summary of facts states Taylor first applied for the benefits in 1999 and was granted them.

On signing the applications, he agreed to immediately advise the ministry of any changes to his circumstances, but failed to when he received income for vehicle trading, rent, bank interest and work.

The three properties he partially owns are collectively worth $978,500 and Taylor had been receiving rental income from them.

He also failed to declare cash assets of $115,752.01 in 2004 and $148,326.65 in 2005.

The Ministry of Social Development refused to comment as the case is currently before the courts.

Taylor told the Herald on Sunday that he and his mother had lived a "modest" life ever since he became her main carer when his father died 20 years ago.

Because his mother had suffered a stroke in 2003 and a further heart attack "from all this stress" in November last year, he said he agreed to plead guilty to avoid a lengthy trial.

Taylor said he might change his plea on Tuesday and apply for a discharge without conviction.

"We were in a state of shock when this happened to us, and I pleaded guilty because going through a trial could kill Mum."

Because he feels he has been let down by the Ministry of Social Development, Taylor has filed a private civil prosecution against Prime Minister John Key, Social Development Minister Paula Bennett and the Ministry's chief executive Peter Hughes.

He said Key, Bennett and Hughes had been a part of causing him and his mother stress, which had led them both to consider committing suicide.

The Wellington District Court confirmed they had received the prosecution from Taylor.