Evri Delivery Driver Claimed £235,000 In Benefits Despite Saying He Couldn’t Bend Over

An Evri delivery driver who swindled more than a quarter of a million pounds (!) by falsely claiming he couldn’t bend over has been jailed.

Paul Churchman, 49, collected £235,000 in benefits alongside his wife Gemma, 42, after he claimed he could barely walk more than 20 metres due to ‘agonising pain’.

At the same time, he earned £403,000 as a delivery driver for Evri, formerly Hermes, over 11 years. Not bad!

Despite banking the equivalent of £36,000 a year between January 2013 and January 2024, he received £105,786 of housing benefit, £45,411 of income support and £38,404 in Personal Independence Payment.

Paul also received £24,562 of Universal Credit, £9,589 in Jobseekers’ Allowance and £8,081 in Employment and Support Allowance (ESA), as well as a council tax reduction of £3,340. How cheeky can you get?

The couple have now been given with repayment plan of £250 a month, which I guess means they’ll never pay all of it back?

Paul has also been sentenced to three years in jail, though, so I wouldn’t say it was worth it in the end. It also turns out he had similar offences in the past and was jailed in 2010 for stealing from an employer. Wife Gemma was spared prison after she took full responsibility for her role in the decade-plus long scam.

During the 11 years of fraudulently collecting benefits, Paul pretended Gemma prepared his meals because he could not bend over to reach pots and pans, and that he needed help getting in and out of the bath.

No idea how he managed to con everyone with the necessity of doctor’s confirmations and DWP assessments and whatnot, but he did have ample opportunity to correct it over 11 years but just kept on cashing in.

He then involved his wife in the scam, as she filled out claims for income support, Universal Credit and council tax reduction after claiming her husband was jobless.

Paul’s lawyer used the classic ADHD excuse to explain why the delivery driver made the awful decision to continue collecting benefits for 11 years, but the judge was not buying it.

Judge Hellens said: ‘On each occasion, if you were acting with impulsivity, you would have had an opportunity to step back and change what you had done.

‘You involved your wife in what you did. She too could have helped you or demonstrated to you the decisions you were making [were wrong], and you chose not to put right those things you had done in the course of your criminal behaviour.

‘So while I’m alive very much to the fact of your diagnosis, I cannot see it impacted the decisions you made that led to the pattern of offending in this matter.’

He ripped into Paul for involving his wife in the scam: ‘Not only did you take from the people of this country a total sum of £235,000, you pulled your wife into criminality.’

‘You had, shortly before this matter, received sentences for dishonesty and, it appears, in relation to claims as well. You knew with open eyes what you were doing.

‘It’s one thing to have made the fraudulent claims that you have and be dishonest in the way you have, but to bring your wife into that circle of criminality is something I think you will pay the price for for the rest of your days.’

Makes you wonder how many other people out there are cheating the system out of six-figure sums. Apparently it’s easy enough to do if you know how, but Paul here just got too greedy. Always a bad idea.

For the ‘Kardashian of Cheshire’ who conned friends out of £200,000 in a Hermes bag scam, click HERE.