A benefits cheat who lost his job with a Black Country distribution firm and went on to illegally claim more than £25,000 of taxpayers’ cash has been jailed for four months.

Kingsley Wainwright, aged 48, of Willenhall, failed to tell the Department for Work and Pensions about his subsequent jobs as a security guard and a warden for a period of three years.

Wolverhampton Crown Court heard yesterday how he was injured in a road accident in 2000. It meant he lost his heavy lifting job at Walsall-based AF Blakemore’s, which distributes to Spar stores, and began to legitimately claim benefits.

But in 2003 Wainwright, of Sandbeds Road, began working as a night watchman for a haulage firm earning £50 a week. Later, he worked for Walsall’s Frank F Harrison Community Association as a warden, earning £500 a month.

Mr Nicholas Smith, prosecuting, said Wainwright did not reveal that he was working. “Had the Department known, he wouldn’t have received incapacity benefit or income support at all. He would have received some housing and council tax benefits, just not as much as he did.”

Wainwright, of Sandbeds Road, admitted four charges of claiming incapacity benefit, income support, housing and council tax benefits without notifying a change in his circumstances.

Judge Nicholas Webb told Wainwright: “You have been responsible for a period of three years for dishonestly obtaining over £25,000 of taxpayers’ money by obtaining benefits to which you were not entitled. It’s the kind of offence which is so prevalent, which so outrages people who pay their tax and people who are genuinely in need that a court understandably takes a serious view of it.”

Mr Oliver Woolhouse, defending said Wainwright was “ashamed” of what he had done.