A LIMOUSINE-driving benefits scrounger - who went jogging three times a week while claiming to be wheelchair-bound - was jailed for fraud yesterday.

Businessman John Moses claimed to be seriously disabled, suffering from osteo-arthritis, sciatica, vertigo, blackouts and to be going blind.

In fact, the 50-year-old was so fit he went running regularly and was caught on camera by a benefits investigator lugging bricks and cement to build a wall.

And when he was rumbled, the supposedly crippled Moses sprang into action - chasing the investigator around the house.

Yesterday, the fraudster, who claimed £42,000 in benefits between 1994 and 1997, was jailed for 18 months following a two-year investigation by DSS fraud officers.

His 44-year-old wife, Victoria, was jailed for ten months at Newcastle Crown Court after being found guilty of false accounting.

She had claimed disability living allowance for breathlessness and angina - yet a medical examiner could only find that she was four stones overweight and had a suntan from a jaunt to the Algarve.

The pair claimed disability living allowance, income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit. They even claimed extra allowance by stating that both were carers - for each other.

John Moses, of Mazine Terrace, Haswell, County Durham, kept up the pretence to the last, hobbling into Newcastle Crown Court with the help of his son yesterday to be sentenced.

He claimed to be seriously disabled and unable to work when he was actually running a business.

His deception was discovered when he claimed his L-reg Daimler limousine had been stolen while he was jogging along the beach at Seaton Carew.

During an interview with the insurers, Moses claimed he went running three times a week.

Prosecutor Richard Gray told the court: "Mr Moses's downfall was that he informed his insurance company that he had parked it to go for a run on the beach.

"He said he went jogging three times a week and bragged to an investigator that he was quite an athlete."

Mr Gray had told how the couple repeatedly filled in forms about their states of ill health but they were nothing more than a "pack of lies" and a "complete and utter sham".

Judge Peter Armstrong told him: "You were running a business of your own and also claiming at one stage to be capable of jogging.

"You were also caught on video building a wall - all at a time when you were claiming not to be working and, indeed, made medical claims to the effect that you were wheelchair-bound."

Last October, a jury at Teesside Crown Court found Moses guilty of making false benefit claims, aiding and abetting his wife to make false claims and intimidating a witness when he sent a letter to a DSS investigator.

Moses was ordered to pay a £20,000 confiscation order within nine months or be jailed for a further 12 months.

After the case, the Deputy Minister for Work, Malcolm Wicks, described the case as "one of the biggest benefit swindles" he had ever seen.

"This is an excellent example of how our fraud detection team roots out benefits cheats and should serve as a strong reminder that we always pursue cases against fraudsters vigorously.

"Fraud is not a victimless crime. It costs every household in the country £80 a year - that is between £2bn and £4bn a year.