Procurator Fiscal should be ashamed.

We get the Oban Times each week.

Drink cases are the meat and stuff of the local Sheriff Courts. Sometimes petty theft, sometimes road incidents, sometimes drugs but it is all petty stuff, and most of it is in Fort William and Oban.

This week there was a shocker, a real shocker. I'm not going to name any names, because I don't like the vicious stuff that can be put on the web.

A lady from near Fort William was charged with a £4,300 Benefit Fraud. She was visibly distressed in Court and no wonder. The Sheriff, who decides these things in Scotland's Courts, cleared her of all charges and said "There is an issue with what the newspapers call "Benefit cheats". I do not put you into this category at all". Good for him.

You know what she did? She got a part-time job while she was claiming benefits. She was told, quite correctly, that she could work up to 16 hours a week without it affecting her benefits. That is exactly what she did.

But no one told her that she must report the new job to the Benefits Office.

For that she was summonsed for fraud.

Heavens, what have we come to? A good talking to is the maximum that should have happened.
We bang on about Human Rights, and the European Courts, but we've got this sort of nonsense in our own backyard. Get it sorted everyone.

John

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