They're behind you! Benefits agency catches up with incapacity cheat... after seeing him in panto as Widow Twankey

An actor claimed almost £29,000 in incapacity benefit for a bad back – while leaping across the stage as Widow 

Paul Couchman, who used the stage name of Peter Goode and played Widow Twankee, claimed benefits while he had £16,000 in savings

Twankey, Long John Silver and Shakespeare’s Caliban.

Paul Couchman, 41, was caught after investigators discovered he had £16,000 in savings.

It turned out he had been performing under the stage name of Peter Goode for the seven years he had been receiving money from the state.

He first lodged a claim for incapacity benefit in 2004, when he said he had a ‘bad back’.

But by 2007 he was fit enough to perform as Widow Twankey in Aladdin at the Congress Theatre in Cwmbran, South Wales, and as Long John Silver in Treasure Island at the same theatre in 2008.

He followed his panto performances with a string of Shakespearean roles for the Rainbow Theatre Group, whose patron is Dame Judi Dench.

In 2008 he played Petruchio in an open air performance of the Taming of the Shrew at Highdown Gardens in Worthing, West Sussex, and this summer he played Caliban in The Tempest at the same event.

Last year he played Sir  Toby Belch in Twelfth Night and Banquo in Macbeth at the Greenwich Royal Observatory in south east London.

Couchman continued to receive £4,000 a year in benefits, without declaring his income or that he was fit to work again.

His scam was uncovered this year after a joint investigation between Hillingdon Council in West London and the Department for Work and Pensions.

At a hearing at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court last week, Couchman, of West Drayton, West London, admitted fraudulently claiming £28,904 in incapacity benefit. He was sentenced to 26 weeks in prison, suspended for two years.

He was also ordered to pay a £450 fine and given a four week 7pm to 7am curfew – which will end in time for him to perform when pantomime season starts next month.

Garry Coote, of Hillingdon Council’s corporate fraud team, said: ‘The council is always pleased when another benefit cheat is caught. It is honest taxpayers’ money they are stealing.

‘We take benefit fraud very seriously and we will take court action against anyone we catch trying to cheat the system.’

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