A £21,000 ‘multiple’ benefits cheat claimed he could only walk 10 metres without severe discomfort - while working for a security firm in a near four-year scam, a court heard.

Burnley magistrates were told how dishonest William Holt got £21,327 he wasn't entitled to, of which £19,000 was disability living allowance.

The 29-year-old defendant, of Station Road, Helmshore, was sentenced to eight weeks in prison, suspended for a year, with £85 costs and a £80 victim surcharge.

The bench told him he had committed ‘multiple frauds over a considerable length of time’.

Holt admitted seven counts of dishonestly failing to notify a change in circumstances, committed between March 2010 and November 2013, four involving the Department for Work and Pensions - disability living allowance and jobseeker's allowance - and three regarding Rossendale Borough Council and housing and council tax benefits.

Prosecutor Andrew Robinson told the hearing Holt had had cerebral palsy from birth and had also suffered third degree burns to his body nine years before.

As part of the declaration made to the DWP in 2009, he said he couldn't walk for five minutes without suffering severe discomfort. The department came into information that Holt appeared to have improved from 2010, but he failed to tell them. Holt was working for a security firm from that year, observations were kept and ‘his responsibilities and duties there were not consistent with what was said on the claim for Disability Living Allowance’.

Mr Robinson said: "He was allowed Disability Living Allowance at the higher rate. It was not a fraud from the outset, but appears to have been carried out over a significant period of time."

Jeremy Frain, for Holt, said he co-operated fully with the DWP. He attended interview voluntarily, made admissions under caution and entered his guilty pleas at the first opportunity.

The solicitor continued: "His claim for Disability Living Allowance only commenced in 2009. At that stage, it was legitimate. He could have claimed it substantially earlier than he did, but he didn't claim it until that time."

Mr Frain said: "There's a question mark as to whether he is going to be reassessed. It may well be that he is not entitled to the higher rate Disability Living Allowance. He may subsequently be entitled to the lower rate or medium rate."

Repayments of the money had started and will continue to be deducted from Holt.

The solicitor continued: “I do think he is genuinely remorseful. I firmly believe he will never come back before this court again. He has lost his good name by this conviction."