The middle of the line

Mike Galsworthy pled guilty to all four counts of fiddling on Council Tax benefit, and was fined £350 (plus costs and a £15 victim surcharge).

As he’s already resigned from the council, the matter won’t go any further – assuming he pays the fine. It’s good to see that a benefit fraudster has been caught ,although the penalty seems a little lenient, it can carry a three month jail sentence, and a much larger fine. Perhaps he has already repaid anything owing, and pleading poverty appears to have helped. Still his fine doesn’t come close to the cost of the by-election that he caused.

I expect the local Tories are pretty embarrassed about this – he’d not only been a Parish councillor for some time, but he’d also been on the Borough’s Standards Committee, which monitors the ethical standards of councillors. If anything his position should have meant a harsher punishment, but apparently the man has ‘limited means’.