Brooks/Epilepsy Society Saints and Scroungers

Think about it - what would you do if you had a bad run of luck?

The chances are that you would end up turning to government agencies for a bit of help.

We're very lucky to have a welfare state

and I think a lot of people don't appreciate it.

My husband is disabled.

Without the benefit system, we would have found things very difficult.

Here in the UK, millions of us need to ask for help every year.

In the form of benefits, legal aid and health care.

But there are some people who are out there to cheat the system out of as much as they can.

Benefit cheats are criminals and they should be treated accordingly.

How are these people managing to get away with this?

Those people who are trying to get rich from the public purse are now being sniffed out

by investigators who want to make sure that as much money as possible is available to those who need it.

This is the world of Saints and Scroungers.

Coming up - the scroungers that are out to beat the system.

A business owner who used the Government's Access to Work scheme

to line his own pockets to the tune of ?2 million.

The computers were full of very strong evidence.

And a man who claimed benefit,

saying his crippling arthritis kept him housebound,

but who is a lot nimbler than he made out.

He's lifting cumbersome, heavy objects.

He's walking at a normal pace, there is no evidence of limp, or pain in his back or hip.

He's not doing it slowly as one might expect if someone was in severe pain.

And those in need of a helping hand

- a woman who's battled with epilepsy all her life

and desperately needs support to get into the work place.

What I really wanted to do, is I wanted to learn

and I also wanted to work and I wanted to get a job that

I could actually be proud of and move up in the world.

You all right?

We have 190,000 prangs every year in the UK.

That's a lot of bumps and dents.

It's no laughing matter, because if you're injured as a result of a car crash,

you could end up missing work and then you will be reliant on the Government for your income.

And if you're faking it, you could be on a collision course with their investigators.

Meet Barry Brooks from the London borough of Bromley,

southeast of central London, with a population of nearly 300,000.

In the 1990s, Brooks had a car accident which left him

with serious back, head and neck injuries.

He was so badly hurt he was barely able to feed himself.

He'd suffered some kind of whiplash injury that effectively had disabled him.

In fact, he was described in some of the documents as tetraplegic,

which would make him seriously, seriously disabled.

He was confined to a wheelchair and because his injuries were so severe,

he was entitled to the highest rate of incapacity benefit.

But in 2001, things started to look up.

Thanks to the Department for Work and Pensions and the Access to Work scheme,

Barry Brooks was able to return to the workplace.

The Access to Work scheme is a series of grants that can be claimed

to cover various needs for somebody who's disabled,

in order to allow them full access to employment.

Access to Work grants can be claimed as a company,

on behalf of a company, rather than an individual.

This is where a company would employ disabled people and make the claims on their behalf.

So for example, if I was running a company and I had three employees who were disabled

and couldn't use standard computer equipment, I would then make a claim to Access to Work

to get the correct computer equipment in order that they could do their job properly.

The scheme can also pay for transport to and from work

and even if an employee has to move between different sites.

Specially adapted office equipment can be claimed,

or even a support worker if someone needs help to do their job.

Barry Brooks worked for a variety of charities and claimed his expenses through the scheme.

But in 2004, Barry decided to set up his own business, the Access Audit Corporation Ltd

- not to be confused with similar sounding companies.

Making himself company director, he employed six people, all of whom had disabilities.

Brooks made claims on their behalf for taxis to and from work.

He did as well, as he travelled in and out every day by London taxi.

For his work improving the lives of disabled people,

Barry Brooks was hailed a disability champion.

But in August 2009, suspicions were raised and the Access to Work

team in Harrow contacted the fraud investigators.

The case landed on the desk of team fraud investigator, Andy MacDonald.

We realised that there were substantial claims being made for travel in work.

Thousands and thousands of pounds worth of computer equipment had been claimed by this company.

Also on top of this, there are payments made for what is termed a support worker.

In fact, virtually everything that could be claimed for under Access to Work

was being claimed by this one company over a period of years.

He started off by claiming smaller amounts of money.

Gradually escalated.

When challenged, he would provide some kind of proof to those who needed to see it,

in order that all of the claims appeared genuine.

Jackie Raja is the head of

the Department for Work and Pensions Financial Investigations Unit.

I've come to the headquarters to find out more about their role in this case.

How did you first come to hear about him?

The investigator in the case was contacted by the criminal investigation team.

They asked for the financial investigation unit to come on board

to bring some of the specialist skills that we've got to support the investigation.

So you weren't looking just at Barry making claims, it was other people?

Yes, it was the scale of the operation of the business he was running.

There was doubt cast over a whole range of people

and the claims that they were making.

What was the suspicion then?

The suspicion was that some of the claims that were being made to this grant

were being really exaggerated to quite an outstanding degree -

hundreds of pounds being over-claimed.

And that wasn't all that was ringing alarm bells.

When we did our checks on Barry Brooks,

it became apparent that as well as running this company,

he was also claiming disability benefits himself.

In fact, the departmental records show this gentleman as being severely disabled,

in fact, wheelchair-bound for several years,

and had been claiming higher rate of disability throughout this period.

At this point, the investigators had no reason to believe that Brooks wasn't genuinely disabled.

But having seen the type of business he was running,

they were suspicious as to whether his own benefit claims were valid.

Having had a look at Barry Brooks, we then became aware of the name Derek Arnold.

Derek Arnold's name had come up as somebody who had also counter-signed documents

as a manager in claims to Access to Work.

It was clear from the fact that he was signing these things that he had a significant role in the company.

Further examination identified him as a co-director of Access Audit Corporation.

Derek Arnold was Barry Brooks' boyfriend,

who claimed to suffer from spinal bone spurs, sleep apnoea and carpal tunnel syndrome,

which meant he was unable to lift, carry and walk distances unaided.

He also needed help cooking, washing and using the toilet.

Further analysis of the claim forms made it clear

he was claiming virtually the same as Barry Brooks was,

which is the full range of Access to Work payments.

When you worked out the sort of sums that could be involved, what was it looking like?

Thousands, tens of thousands of pounds that were being paid out, potentially.

Looking back through the claims that Barry Brooks was making on behalf of himself and his employees,

it was estimated that he was raking in a staggering ?29,000 per month.

And there was one type of expense claim in particular that really stood out.

This investigation had some real concerns about some claims

that were being made for taxi fares for a supposedly disabled person.

This disabled person was allegedly travelling from Cardiff to Orpington,

perhaps as many as five days or six days a week by taxi in order to work in Orpington.

Now this is a substantial taxi journey to take

there and back on the same day and complete a full day's work.

It caused a lot of concern.

It wasn't just the impracticality of the journey that was raising concerns.

The cost of the taxi was ?800 for the round trip.

The man claiming to make this trip was architect Steven Isaacs, who damaged his legs in a car accident.

He was employed by Barry's company to offer advice

on adapting buildings to improve disabled access.

Steven Isaacs' role within Access Audit Corporation was quite

an obvious one and necessary really for the job they were doing.

It was clear from the pattern of these claims that they just couldn't be genuine.

It certainly appeared that people were claiming six days a week, 50 weeks a year

and it just looked such an unbelievable sum of money.

If these claims were fraudulent, Barry Brooks and his company

were claiming nearly ?350,000 a year of taxpayers' money fraudulently.

Something had to be done to find out if the expense claims were real.

There was no option but to conduct surveillance.

We'll find out later if the team were able to get to the bottom

of Access Audit Corporation's outrageous claims.

For now, though, it's time to say farewell to the scroungers trying to fleece the system

and hello to those who we call our saints -

people who do everything to make sure that those in desperate need of help, who are too proud

or simply don't know how to help themselves, get what they deserve.

The benefit system in the UK is undergoing big changes.

From the introduction of universal credit,

to the reassessment of people claiming crucial benefits like Disability Living Allowance.

For people with disabilities, these benefits are vital to their everyday lives

and the changes being brought in can add yet another thing to worry about.

It's something UK charity the Epilepsy Society has witnessed first hand.

Earlier this year we began to get increasing calls to our helpline

about the changes to benefits.

People were extremely worried

about their benefit changes and how it would affect them.

The new benefit system is very complicated to understand

and so we thought that providing information would be one of the most

practical things we could do to support people.

The charity's organised the benefits roadshow in order to help people

who suffer from epilepsy navigate their way through the changes.

The benefits claims process is not straightforward,

but it poses particular challenges for people with epilepsy.

Epilepsy is a variable and fluctuating condition

and it affects everybody in a different way.

This means it is very difficult to talk about a typical day in relation

to what somebody is or isn't able to do and whether they're able to work.

One epilepsy sufferer attending the event is Shirley Jones from Seaford in East Sussex.

I'm here today to find out more about the benefits

and the changes in benefits and how they affect people with epilepsy.

Because I've got epilepsy myself.

Shirley spent years battling with the benefits system

and appreciates just what the charity's trying to do with their event.

Because it's not counted really as a physical disability,

but it's also if you look at the way they do benefit claim forms,

it's not counted... It is not a mental health issue.

And the way the form is split, it's split into two,

so in a way epilepsy is stuck there, even though people sometimes don't think,

they read the information and think, "I don't fit into those categories."

For Shirley, finding out about epilepsy and the type of benefits

that sufferers can claim is absolutely essential.

She's suffered with epilepsy from a very early age.

To be honest, I can't remember much about my very early childhood,

because I was having seizures from the ages of about 18 months

into the age of seven, nearly every day.

So a lot of that time I cannot remember.

Her daily seizures and the stigma that comes with the condition made going to school an ordeal.

I first became aware that I was having seizures when I was six

and other people at my school, children at my school, would be teasing me about it.

Because they didn't know anything about seizures.

So it was quite upsetting.

Today, over half a million people in the UK suffer from epilepsy,

a condition that can be very misunderstood.

Epilepsy's a condition of the brain.

Every person will have a threshold

where if the correct stimuli happen, this can lead to an epileptic seizure.

Having unprovoked epileptic seizures is a condition called epilepsy.

Even we are now in the 21st century, epilepsy still carries a lot of stigma

and sometimes it can affect people more than the condition itself.

For Shirley and her family, the seizures were making life at school impossible.

She went to school at five or six and they couldn't cope with her.

But they thought it was bad behaviour.

Which I suppose it was, to them.

But eventually they asked us to take her away from the school.

At the age of seven, Shirley had been placed permanently into a special needs school.

There was no National Curriculum then, so we weren't entitled to it.

All we got was reading, writing and arithmetic.

Oh, yes, and country dancing!

That was basically...

And then we didn't have... They might incorporate a bit of history,

but it wouldn't be the standard that you would have at secondary school.

And it was frustrating, because I wanted to learn more

and up until the age of 12, I was reading books that

were for around four-year-old, five-year-olds.

And I was told that it was mainly because of the epilepsy.

Shirley left school at 16 with no qualifications.

And although, thanks to medication, she hadn't had a seizure since the age of seven,

she had almost no chance of getting a job.

Over the next 20 years, Shirley tried several jobs,

but she found herself unable to carry out the physical

and mental tasks that were required of her.

What I really wanted to do was, I wanted to learn, and I also wanted to work

and I wanted to get a job that I could actually be proud of and move up in the world.

Often it is misunderstood by people in human resources, employers

and they will always associate epilepsy, for instance, with people having seizures at work.

They might have other fears of people with epilepsy.

Which will lead to misunderstanding and this will make

the life of people in the job market very difficult.

Even though Shirley wasn't suffering from seizures,

she just couldn't hold down a job and was relying on the small

amount she was getting in Jobseeker's Allowance.

But she wasn't giving up, and at the age of 36 she decided to follow her dream to go to university,

and signed up for an access to higher education course to get her there.

To afford to do the course, she needed Disabled Student Allowance

and it was this reassessment of her disability that would change her life.

So the college arranged for me to see an educational psychologist.

He assessed me.

Basically, he says, "Yes, you have got dyslexia and dyspraxia,

"which is affecting your reading and your writing and your spelling.

"Even though it is moderate, it does affect your ability to learn and you need support."

Finally, it became clear - it wasn't the epilepsy that had been holding Shirley back,

it was two completely undiagnosed conditions - dyslexia, which affects the reading and spelling of words -

and dyspraxia, a coordination disorder that can affect basic motor skills like walking

and fine motor skills like writing and picking up small objects.

That was when everything came together.

And I've always had the diagnosis of epilepsy all of my life

and all of my problems that I had with education

and learning have been blamed on that, and suddenly

I was told, no, that's got nothing to do with your epilepsy,

it's to do with the dyslexia and dyspraxia.

Shirley was awarded disability student allowance

and was accepted to study politics and sociology at Sussex University.

Her benefits enabled her to access computer software that helped

sentence structure, spelling and organisation.

And the university - who knew and understood her conditions -

ensured she wasn't marked down for spelling and she got extra time in examinations.

They treated me as if I was an intelligent person.

They looked at what I was actually putting down on the paper

and what I was saying in seminars, more than what my handwriting was like.

Shirley had spent years knowing that it wasn't her epilepsy that was holding her back,

but that she had been unfairly labelled and, as a result, her education suffered.

Through sheer determination, she went to university.

Shirley was well on the way to the degree that she had always dreamed of,

but in her final year the stress of her course began to take its toll.

I'd achieved the first stage of my dream, which was to go to university.

Like, my brother and my two sisters all went there, and I thought, "I'm doing it now.

"I've got what I want to do.

"And I was so happy."

But in her last year at university, she had a bad epileptic seizure.

The medication she'd been on for years had simply stopped working.

I spent that year type of denying that the epilepsy had come back.

So I think I was more concerned that I don't want this to affect me getting a degree.

Incredibly, Shirley ploughed on, and in 2007 she graduated

with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Politics and Sociology.

I thought I was going to get a third.

"Oh, I got a 2.ii, that's good! Oh, it's a lot better than I thought I'd get!"

So I was really very, very happy about it.

Yeah, we were over the moon when she got her degree,

you know, it's an achievement and we were really proud of her.

Finally, after years of struggling with education and the workplace,

Shirley had proved her conditions didn't define her,

but as we'll find out later, putting her new qualifications into practice was no easy task.

Now, from those in need of help

to those people that are out to fiddle the system.

Here in the UK, the Department for Work and Pensions

has a safety net in place to help

those who are genuinely diagnosed with an illness or disability.

You could end up with a blue badge to help you get around,

a much-needed cash injection or even home help, and that's only fair.

But what isn't fair is when some people try to use that safety net

to systematically scam you and I, the taxpayer.

Now, it is just a very small percentage of disability claimants

who do cheat the system,

but the money they fraudulently claim does add up.

One man claiming disability benefits

was 55-year-old Christopher Pope from Bolsover in Derbyshire.

Since May 2000,

he received Disability Living Allowance at the higher rate.

On his claim forms, Pope had told the Department for Work and Pensions

that he needed help seven days a week

and to walk he needed either a stick or his wife's arm

due to very severe pain in his hip and back.

In fact, his condition was so bad, he said even going outside alone

was a no-go due to the fear of falling over.

This restricted lifestyle was due to osteoarthritis.

Osteoarthritis is a degenerative wear-and-tear arthritis of the joints

characterised by pain.

It usually gets worse with time.

It's either in weight-bearing joints or in joints that are used often,

so, for example, the joints of the hand, the knees and the hips.

Pope told the authorities that he'd had to give up his previous job

as it involved minor lifting that caused him discomfort

but that he was managing to work

in another, more manageable, lower-paid job.

To help him out, the Department for Work and Pensions gave him

around ?50 a week in Disability Living Allowance.

Disability benefits are vital in allowing a person to perform

normal, functional tasks of daily living, walking and care.

If they were not available,

that person would be left in a situation where they could not cope

and couldn't look after themselves on the most basic level,

being unable to prepare a meal, go to the toilet and walk.

That safety net is very important.

For Pope, it was the "getting about" bit that was essential.

He chose to have part of his benefits put towards a car,

courtesy of the Motability scheme.

But in April 2011, his eligibility came into question.

An anonymous tip-off from a member of the public wound its way

through the World Wide Web to the DWP's fraud investigators.

The allegation suggested Pope wasn't as disabled as he'd been stating.

In fact, the allegation said his job involved heavy lifting.

If true, his claim to benefits would be in serious doubt.

Investigators immediately contacted his employer,

who was completely unaware Pope had any form of disability.

As the saying goes, "the camera never lies",

so the investigators put Pope under surveillance.

Dr Javid Abdelmoneim is an independent doctor.

While it's not his job to assess benefit claimants,

he does treat people with Pope's condition,

and we asked him to examine

the footage the investigators shot of Pope doing his day job.

Ironically, his job was as a driver delivering mobility aids.

He's working alone and in different locations,

so I presume he is the driver of this van,

a high van that he needs to step into to drive,

which would require a good range of movement at your hip

and to sit in a seated position for a while,

which for someone with severe, debilitating arthritis of the back...

..could be considered difficult, especially for a whole day.

Investigators had discovered that Pope was working full-time,

so that meant a lot of driving and delivering.

And what about his claims that he was only able to walk

40 yards in approximately seven minutes?

Here he's seen carrying lighter objects,

where he strides at full pace with no limitations.

There's a normal rhythm and gait to his walking.

He seems to be perfectly comfortable.

OK, no issues with walking, then.

But Pope also claimed to the DWP

that he stumbled four to five times a week.

So, he's walking at a normal pace,

he's lifting cumbersome, heavy objects.

Here he's seen lifting a reclining chair

which is big and bulky,

by himself, with no aid from anybody or any mechanisms in the van.

He's walking at a normal pace.

There's no evidence of limp or pain in his back or hip.

He's not doing it slowly, he's not doing it gingerly,

as one might expect if someone was in severe pain.

Pope had been under surveillance for a month

before investigators decided they had enough

to be able to put some serious questions to him.

In January 2012, he was interviewed under caution.

The evidence and surveillance footage was shown to him,

and Pope went into confessional.

He admitted he'd exaggerated that he was virtually unable to walk

and admitted he had no entitlement to the benefits he'd been getting.

Finally, some honesty.

After the interview,

investigators were keen to know the whereabouts

of the Motability scheme car the taxpayer had been funding,

as it was conspicuously absent from their surveillance footage.

It lived in his garage, only coming out on Sundays to be washed.

He considered it his pride and joy.

That may be, but I bet Pope wasn't too proud of the fact

he'd claimed over ?23,000 in benefits he wasn't entitled to.

In July 2013 at Derby Crown Court,

he pleaded guilty to failing to notify a change in circumstances

regarding an improvement in his mobility condition

and was sentenced to six months in prison, suspended for 12 months.

He was also ordered to do 200 hours' unpaid work

and received a two-month curfew tag.

Like Pope, the public purse is now in better health,

as his Mobility car was taken off him,

and he's since paid back every penny that he stole.

It's time to return to the people

who legitimately need help from the welfare state.

Shirley Jones was diagnosed with epilepsy as a baby,

and although she'd not had any seizures for 15 years,

she'd been sent to special schools

which didn't offer any real qualifications.

As an adult desperate to become a valued member of society,

it had been discovered she'd also been suffering from dyslexia,

a learning difficulty,

and dyspraxia, which affects coordination.

With her new diagnoses,

she finally got the benefit support she needed and gained a degree.

I did three years of a Politics and Sociology BA

and I graduated with a 2.ii in Politics and Sociology.

I've got what I want to do, and I was so happy.

So... I just can't explain it, really.

It was fantastic news,

and all Shirley wanted to do was go out and get a decent job.

But she was still in denial that her seizures had returned,

and they were now happening monthly.

She'd applied for and got Jobseeker's Allowance once again,

but it was this claim that worsened her condition even further.

The stress of JSA and its limitations on the amount of jobs

you've got to apply for each week or else you're sanctioned...

My seizures are stress-related,

and there's a good chance that the epilepsy will return.

The Jobseeker's Allowance benefit

is there for people who are fit and able to apply for work,

but because of her conditions,

Shirley simply wasn't able to keep up.

She was being sanctioned, which means that her JSA was reduced,

because she wasn't able to apply for the right number of jobs.

She desperately needed some advice.

I was shopping in our local shopping centre,

and they had Epilepsy Society volunteers in the shopping centre.

I went over to them and started talking to them,

and they had a load of leaflets about epilepsy,

but it was actually talking to people

and finding out other people's experiences. It really helped me.

The volunteers at the society invited her to a local group

to chat with other sufferers about the problems they faced.

I was able to talk to people there about how my epilepsy affected me

and about issues, such as employment, which were most important to me,

erm, whether it was worth me going onto benefits, disability benefits,

whether this will be an advantage or a disadvantage.

The society directed her towards the right benefits,

and they told her to apply for ESA, or Employment and Support Allowance,

instead of JSA.

More importantly, they told her how to fill in the forms,

advice the society knows is crucial to those with epilepsy.

The assessment form for Employment Support Allowance

is a largely tick-box form,

and I know there's space to write additional evidence

about how the condition affects you.

Many of the questions ask for an answer "yes", "no" or "sometimes".

For someone with epilepsy, this is very difficult to answer,

because for most people with epilepsy the answer is often

"on some days" or "it depends".

It doesn't fit neatly into a tick-box.

With the right help, Shirley's move onto ESA was successful.

Changing from Jobseeker's Allowance to Employment Support Allowance

made complete sense for Shirley.

Make no mistake, she wanted to work,

and getting the right benefits meant that she could focus

on applying for the right jobs without undue pressure.

As a result, Shirley was no longer having seizures,

and her epilepsy was under control.

Not only that, they informed her that she was also entitled

to Disability Living Allowance,

which she went on to successfully claim,

hugely easing the burden on her day-to-day living expenses.

Having a support network there of people that actually understand

what you're going through,

that helps you apply for benefits

that in the back of your mind you know that you're entitled to

but you think, "Well, should I apply for this?", and things like that.

It helps you be confident about going to work

and thinking, "Yes, I am able to do this,

"I've got the right experience for this."

My epilepsy should not affect me...

Well, it will affect me,

but if it does, there are ways of actually getting support, and that.

It was there that she met Trevor Hutton,

a regional manager at the society

who was there at one of her support meetings.

I first met Shirley...

I remember it very well, I was doing a presentation on

- would you believe? - public attitudes towards epilepsy,

and this was to a group in Eastbourne.

At the end of the meeting,

he was saying the most important thing is

the information volunteers.

And I thought, "Yes, this is something I can do."

So I said, "Yes, I'd like to become a volunteer."

Shirley now volunteers at her local hospital twice a week,

giving people that have been newly diagnosed and their families

advice on how to cope with epilepsy.

I've been able to actually help people get rid of the fears they have

and the stigma around epilepsy and what it contains

and let people realise that it isn't the end of everything.

And with Disability Living Allowance

now changing to the Personal Independence Payment,

epilepsy sufferers have to get their heads round

a new application process.

But at the society's benefits roadshow in London,

help is at hand for those that are struggling.

Shirley's attending in order to brush up her volunteering knowledge.

I'm also here partly for the people that I'm providing information for.

People with epilepsy who I speak to really want to work if they can,

but they want to know that the system's there for them

for the times when they're not able to work,

when they need that extra support.

Shirley's volunteering is helping her confidence,

and at the same time she's helping others.

Shirley is delightful.

She's really committed to what she does

and is incredibly reliable, giving good information,

and I am pleased to say that we have her on board.

Shirley is a very determined person.

And everything she's done she's done on her own.

And she's never down.

I've never seen her down, always up for it...

..which...

must take some doing, really, mustn't it?

For many years, Shirley's conditions were misunderstood.

She was excluded from society,

and she had no idea what benefits she was entitled to.

If I could say one thing to the Epilepsy Society,

I would like to say, "I'm glad you're there. Thank you very much."

And now that she's got volunteer training under her belt,

well, who knows what could come next?

In the future, I'd like to get a job in disability campaigns.

That was the reason why I went to university.

That's the reason I chose to do politics and sociology.

Shirley will be the first to tell you

that she still has a journey ahead of her to get where she wants to be,

but having finally got the right support and advice,

she's in a better place than ever before.

And she's now using what she's learnt

to help other people understand a bit more about epilepsy.

Time now to return to those

who think nothing of pinching from the public purse,

the world of the scrounger.

Barry Brooks was suspected of defrauding the Access To Work scheme

for hundreds of thousands of pounds

by submitting what investigators suspected were bogus claims.

At a very early stage,

I became aware that there could be a considerable fraud taking place,

a massive attack on the taxpayers' money.

Because of their concerns, the Department for Work and Pensions

had decided to place Brooks, along with his boyfriend Derek Arnold

and their employee Stephen Isaacs, under surveillance.

When we commenced our surveillance operation,

our objectives were relatively simple at the start.

All we needed to do, really, was to see whether people arrived

at the Access Audit Corporation business premises by taxi.

After all, that's what the claims were being made for.

So we wanted to see whether Brooks, Arnold - in fact, anybody else -

arrived by taxi and left the business premises by taxis.

We saw Brooks and Arnold leaving their address

but not going to the business.

However, our people that were watching the business

saw a number of women turning up.

So it was quite clear that, yes, there was a business running there,

and there appeared to be staff employed there.

We very quickly realised that these members of staff

had no idea what was going on.

It was quite clear that they were not involved in the fraud.

But investigators strongly suspected Isaacs, Brooks' employee,

who'd been making extortionate taxi claims from Cardiff to Kent.

We saw no sign of him at the premises over quite extensive surveillance,

nor did we see him leave his own house.

So we had serious concerns

about whether he was conducting any business

for Access Audit Corporation at all.

The surveillance not only uncovered

that Isaacs never once made the ?800 taxi ride to the company premises,

it also highlighted some other very interesting information

about Barry Brooks, too.

In fact, at no point when we were watching them did they use a taxi.

It was always a range of vehicles - a Range Rover, Jaguar, Mercedes.

So, over the period of the mobile surveillance, we watched,

for example, Brooks and Arnold shopping together,

taking a trolley, loading the bags into the back of the car.

We see them walking the length of a high street,

walking, in the estimation of the investigator, possibly a mile.

You have to bear in mind that he is claiming to be working at AAC

and requiring a support worker

to look after him for that period of time.

These two men claimed to be so severely disabled

that they couldn't walk unaided

and needed help with everything, from lifting to going to the toilet.

It was now clear Brooks and Arnold were not entitled to the benefits

and Access to Work grants they'd been claiming on their own behalves

and potentially for every employee in their company.

The investigators were now convinced

that the Access Audit Corporation was a sham.

They just had to prove it.

In March 2010, police and the DWP struck.

This was an incredibly complex arrest to arrange for several reasons,

one of them being we had a number of addresses to check.

We were very wary that if we attended the addresses separately,

that somebody would alert someone else.

The police and DWP officers raided the Access Audit Corporation

and the homes of Brooks, Arnold and Isaacs.

They confiscated computers, company accounts

and bank-account information.

Brooks' account showed that not only was he a company director,

he owned five properties, including the house he shared with Arnold,

a penthouse apartment in Spain and a motorcycle shop.

But it was analysis of the confiscated computers

that provided the most important information.

We have e-mails going backwards and forwards

between the main perpetrators of this fraud

indicating not just that they knew each other,

which, actually, is vital to our case,

but also discussing how to make this fraud work,

how to get round Access to Work,

what to say to justify certain claims,

e-mails that showed quite clearly that they were well knowledgeable

in what they were doing and that what they were doing was wrong.

They even found scammed copies

of all Brooks' companies' employees' signatures,

which they would use to make expense claims on their behalves,

completely unbeknownst to them.

Brooks would, of course, keep the cash for himself.

And e-mails proved that Isaacs was in on it, too.

Brooks, Arnold and Isaacs were brought in for questioning.

In the interviews under caution, Brooks and Arnold both no-commented.

They gave no response whatsoever to our questions.

Mr Isaacs spoke. He attempted to give explanations.

Unfortunately for Mr Isaacs,

his explanations were completely disproved.

But suddenly, Barry Brooks started to suffer a relapse.

I had the reports from my investigators

of his behaviour during the arrest,

where he couldn't be moved out of a wheelchair,

he couldn't step up one step

to go towards the interview room in the police station.

It just didn't seem that this could possibly be the same man.

The three men were released on bail and a court date was set.

However, this was postponed four times,

as Barry Brooks claimed he was too poorly to attend.

The team wasn't convinced and decided to do some more digging.

An internet search revealed

that not only was Barry Brooks pulling a sickie,

he was potentially pulling a few pints, too.

This new search suggested he was the landlord of a country pub.

Andy decided to pay him another visit.

The surveillance in the pub was very interesting.

What I found was Mr Brooks serving behind the bar.

He was walking completely unaided,

without any sign of any discomfort whatsoever.

It was clear that, unfortunately, Mr Brooks and Mr Arnold

were going to have to be re-arrested and re-interviewed.

So we called in the police,

and the police were perfectly willing to re-arrest them.

On the 6th of June 2012,

the three men finally appeared at Southwark Crown Court in London.

Isaacs pleaded guilty to the charge of conspiracy to defraud,

and Brooks, attending in his wheelchair, and Arnold

both pleaded not guilty.

But after a seven-week trial, the pair was found guilty

and sentenced to eight years in prison.

Isaacs received a two-and-a-half-year sentence

because it was felt that by pleading guilty

he'd saved the taxpayer a lot of money.

Over the years, Barry Brooks had fiddled the taxpayer

out of ?27,000 in housing benefit and council tax benefit,

over ?77,000 in personal care grants

and swiped over ?1.9 million

from the Department for Work and Pensions.

That's a total of over ?2 million pinched from the public purse.

The Department for Work and Pensions...

Well, they wanted their money back.

So where are we in that process, then?

Have we got most or all of that ?2 million?

Where we are in the process

is that Brooks has had what's called a confiscation order

made against him.

At the outset, we would have restrained a lot of this money,

and some of that money has gone to pay some of the costs

involved in this case.

Basically, Brooks now has to pay

an order in excess of... I think it's around ?300,000,

the intention being that as and when he comes out of prison,

he has no assets left,

that all the money that he's accrued as a result of his criminality

will have gone, so he has nothing to come back to.

It's a staggering sum of money, and if you think about it,

Brooks and his merry men are a bit like Robin Hood and his gang...

in reverse,

stealing from people who really deserve and need

the Government's help and money

and using it to make themselves rich.

It's reassuring to know that not only have they lost their freedom

but that the money that they've made

from this elaborate and deceptive scam should soon follow suit.

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