Suffolk carer told to repay nearly £9k of benefits to DWP

Mr Munson, who now works at Ipswich Town’s Portman Road ground on match days and as a school minibus driver, said he always kept the department up-to-date and never tried to mislead them.

He claimed he also made a point of informing the department, given the unpredictable nature of his jobs, that he might work more or less in any given month.

Mr Munson said he was told not to worry and it would “sort itself out over the year”, only to then be informed he had received too many carer’s allowance payments.

He said: “They overpaid me, I can accept that, but what really gripes me is they took three years to realise they were paying me something I was not entitled to.

“They also gave me a £50 penalty for ‘falsely claiming’, which I didn’t, not knowingly anyway.”

“There’s an attitude in this country that if you’re on benefits you are a scrounger but there’s a hell of a lot of people who need those benefits and are genuine.

“The benefits system is a minefield and heavily stacked in favour of putting people off claiming.”