A BENEFITS cheat who stole £551,000 in extra handouts has been given 1,344 years to pay it back.
The fraudster’s Universal Credit payments are docked at a rate of just £34.16 per month.
The unidentified crook’s case is the worst example of benefit blunders admitted by the Department of Work and Pensions — which lost £4.7billion last year due to errors or fraud.
It was up from £3.9billion the previous year.
And it means £12.6million vanishes every day from the benefits system because of paperwork bungles or frauds.
Officials also revealed another benefit cheat pocketed £526,000.
They have £95.34 docked from their monthly benefits, which will take almost 500 years to repay.
The worst cases were disclosed by the government after a Freedom of Information Act request.
The TaxPayers’ Alliance called them “a real slap in the face for taxpayers”.
A DWP spokesman said: “We will always strive to recover overpayments including by recovery of assets in addition to making deductions from income.”
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