Fraud probe | Employee narrowly avoids prison after pocketing £10k sick pay while working second job

A council worker has narrowly avoided prison after claiming more than £10,000 in sick pay while secretly working a second job.

Samantha Harris was a youth support practitioner at Suffolk County Council when she dishonestly claimed the five-figure sick pay sum between December 2022 and May 2023, magistrates heard.

The court heard that Harris became the subject of suspicion when a care agency told fraud detectives that she was working for them, despite being signed off sick with the council.

An investigation was launched and uncovered that Harris had been working for a private agency during five spells of absence – the longest of which was two months.