A FRAUD buster who hatched a plan to hide thousands of pounds of fraudulent benefits being claimed by his partner has been jailed.

Mohammed Aslam, 38, concocted an elaborate string of deceptions in his role as an investigator for the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to try to hide more than £31,000 being squirreled by his wife Afshan Ishaq.

Aslam, of Bassingham Road, Wembley, even went to the lengths of interviewing Ishaq while pretending to not know her, to conceal the fact she was falsely claiming income support, housing benefits, and council tax deductions under the guise of being a destitute single mother.

At Harrow Crown Court today, Aslam, who worked for the DWP since 2000, was jailed for two years and three months for wilful misconduct in a public office, money laundering, and three counts of perverting the course of justice.

Ishaq, 37, now of Barn Way, Wembley, was given a six month prison term suspended for two years and ordered to carry out 180 hours of community service for three counts of benefit fraud.

Judge Graham Arran sentencing, told Aslam: “You had a position where the public trusted you with protection of the public purse.

“It is the breach of that trust that makes this offence so serious.”

The benefit swindle took place over four years, but began to unravel when Ishaq claimed £55 too much in benefits and came under investigation from the DWP.

When the investigator in charge of the case went on holiday, Aslam, sensing the scheme was under threat, took over the case, and buried it by fabricating phone calls, and giving her a formal caution after interviewing her.

When the case came to court, the couple initially denied any wrongdoing, but after Ishaq broke down in the witness box, they changed their pleas to guilty, with Aslam also admitting forging signatures of colleagues and claimants in unrelated cases to reduce his workload.

The couple met when working together at the DWP offices in Uxbridge, and got married in Islamic tradition. But they pretended to be single and claimed she was a struggling mother-of-two living on her own.

She was spared jail by Judge Arran because she has a seven-month-old baby to look after and is the sole carer of his severely disabled father, but will have to pay £1,000 costs to prosecution and defence teams.

Aslam, who had been sacked by the DWP and the court heard will not likely get a job of this responsibility again, has been ordered to pay back £31,477 of false benefits claims, including more than £20,000 to Harrow Council.