Benefits cheat 'funded exotic jet set lifestyle'

A £70,000 benefits cheat who said he couldn't walk was secretly filmed pulling two suitcases through an airport before jetting away on a luxury holiday to Australia with his wife.

Kevin McEntee, 64, enjoyed a lavish lifestyle - including 19 foreign cruises with his former wife Pauline - while claiming that they were both significantly disabled.

His fraudulent claims for Disability Living Allowance for himself and wife totalled £68,924.45.

McEntee, from Merseyside, was also part of a cycle club, riding twice a week.

He was filmed in 2013 at Manchester Airport "moving without apparent difficulty" and walking for half a mile.

He was jailed for two years after Liverpool Crown Court heard that he had "grossly exaggerated the extent of his difficulties".

He had enjoyed as many as three holidays a year around the Mediterranean, Brazil and the Caribbean.

The court heard that some of the trips were taken in the weeks before or after a claim was made.

He was found guilty of five offences of benefit fraud after trial.

Unemployed McEntee had been involved in an industrial injury in 1996.

In 2000, he claimed that following a heart attack he needed a walking stick, regularly fell and was not able to walk 25 metres.

He said he that needed help bathing, getting out of bed and help cutting up his food.

He was rewarded Disability Living Allowance and had a blue disabled badge for his car.

It was not disputed that McEntee had suffered medical complaints including osteoarthritis, cervical spondylosis and depression - but the extent to how it affected his daily activities were "deliberately exaggerated".