'Disabled' bowler avoids prison

A man who received £60,000 in disability allowances while playing bowls and running a taxi business has been given a suspended sentence.

Leslie Webb, 61, of St Paul's Road, Gloucester, had claimed it took him 10 minutes to walk 50 yards.

But Webb was the match-playing president of a local bowls club.

Sentencing him to 18 months in jail suspended for two years, Recorder Peter Henry told Webb he had "grossly exaggerated" his illness.

The court heard Webb, who also had a part-time job as a pall bearer, was convicted of claiming £17,000 of disability living allowance and £43,000 in incapacity benefit between 1996 and 2000.

"While you were claiming you could hardly walk you were... an active and enthusiastic bowls player"
Recorder Peter Henry

While Recorder Peter Henry accepted Webb did have Crohn's disease and spondylosis, a spinal disease, he told him he had "grossly exaggerated" his illness.

He said: "While you were claiming you could hardly walk you were able to hold down a job as a coffin bearer and were an active and enthusiastic bowls player at county level."

Tony Allcock MBE, chief executive of the English Bowling Association, said Webb was never out of breath and could stand through a two-and-a-half-hour bowling match.

Webb had told the court bowls "was like medicine".

"The alternative to not playing was to sit in a chair and vegetate. I wasn't prepared to do that," Webb had said.

At his trial police said there was no dispute Webb had medical problems, including a hip replacement in 1995 and bowel operation in 1997.

But they did not accept he was too sick to walk far, given his success with the Gloucester Bowling Association and his physical work in the funeral business.

Defending Webb, James Tucker said his client now received no benefits at all and had been "humiliated" by the press coverage of his story.

He had also been banned from his bowls club, Mr Tucker said.

Webb was convicted six counts relating to false claims of disability living allowance and incapacity benefit.

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