Copyright birminghammail
A Department for Work and Pensions chief managed to pocket £45,000 in sick pay while jetting around the world. He has managed to be spared jail – after a judge ruled he could stay free because of his wife’s poor health. Maurice Okello, 39, a DWP policy advisor, claimed he was gravely ill with malaria after being bitten by a mosquito at his father’s funeral in Kenya. But he was rumbled having toured the world from Tampa, Mexico City, Boston, Gothenburg, Kos, Marrakesh and Brussels. All the while, he was pocketing taxpayer-funded sick pay. Okello was given a suspended sentence at Southwark crown court after a judge accepted his wife really is ill. READ MORE There's one group of drivers you have to feel so sorry for in new UK pay-per-mile car tax Judge Martin Griffith told him: "Over a period of getting on for a year you helped yourself to while working as a civil servant. That was a total of £45,000. "You willingly helped yourself to money that was available and hoped that nobody would pick up on it. "People are rightly fed up with civil servants doing this sort of thing and there may come a time when a very serious view is taken on these things." The judge added: "I am not going to lock you up today." He added: "£45,000 is a very substantial sum of money. You abused your position. "What you did was sophisticated in nature and you did it over a long period of time. There is an argument that in these circumstances, where a civil servant helped himself to that amount of money, that the only thing the courts should do is lock him up." 'I bear in mind the difficulties we have these days having run out of money... You offer the prospect of paying compensation," he said. "'I consider that you have a real prospect of rehabilitation and that you will not stand in the dock again. I bear in mind the significant effect that an immediate sentence would have on your partner." "If you've ever played Monopoly you've used your get out of jail free card and you won't get another one," the judge went on to add.
