Alan Blacker, AKA Lord Harley, AKA Dr The Right Honourable The Lord Harley of Counsel of the Most Venerable Order of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, is standing trial for fraud.
The self-styled Lord is being prosecuted in the crown court for falsely claiming £60,000 in disability benefits between 1997 and 2015. At the hearing this week prosecutor Chloe Fordham said Blacker claimed disability living allowance with a "high rate mobility component" usually applicable for people who cannot walk - such as claimants with no legs or feet, or blind people.
But Fordham said that witnesses had given numerous examples of Blacker engaging in physical activities including first aid training and constructing a model railway. The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) also filmed him "moving about with ease" in court in 2014, following which they quizzed him and finally stopped his payments.
Fordham also told the court that Blacker failed to inform the DWP that his condition improved over the 18-year period during which he continued to pocket state handouts.
"My whole life centres around avoiding pain", a fully-limbed Blacker penned on a claim form in 1998, "these problems cause a risk to my life". He also said that he could only walk with "much intrepedity, pain and fear of falling".
Blacker denies fraud.
Alan Blacker and the Sorceror's disability claim
Blacker has undoubtedly suffered pain, mostly at the hands of judges and tribunals, ever since his disastrous appearance before Judge Wynn Morgan in 2015, when the judge compared him to "something out of Harry Potter". Media attention quickly turned to Blacker's 12,500 word LinkedIn profile. His profile boasted that Blacker was a 'Licensed Boiler Examiner', attended colleges at Oxford, Cambridge and Dublin Universities (none had any record of him), owned patents including one for a mortar weapon called a 'Hedgehog', and was fluent in Urdu.
In 2016 Blacker was prosecuted by the SRA. He refused to attend because, he said, the hearing overlapped with his birthday. He was struck off and ordered to pay the SRA's costs of £86,000. Blacker appealed the order on the basis of his health. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal ruled his evidence "unconvincing", then handed him another bill for £7,500.
Blacker's latest trial continues.
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"physical activities such as first aid training and constructing a model railway"
Are those really what the average man on the clapham omnibus would understand to be "physical" activities?
"The Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) also filmed him "moving about with ease" in court in 2014"
As I recall most courts are rather cramped and distinctly un sport field like so how much moving about was he really doing?
At some point RoF you're not reporting the 'news' your just kicking a mentally ill walter mitty person
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Its only time before he becomes President of the Law Society. His CV is spot on.
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There is something to be said for punching up, rather than punching down.
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This is our tax payer money so a serious matter, although he always does us a laugh.
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I'm not sure how Sumo King thinks he'd administer first aid without physical exertion. Perhaps an air kiss of life?
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Don't know how he got a patent for the 'Hedgehog' mortar. Devised and developed in the interwar years and used on board British warships in WWII as an anti U Boat weapon....
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To assist the honourable gentleman above, one 3-Ducks of 1 Faragestrasse, North Thanet, I suspect that our understandings of "exertion" vary. While I naturally accept that those of us lucky enough to have been sat behind Wills & Trusts for Dummies for 30 years may well consider that putting a sticking plaster onto someone's grazed knee as "exertion" I would hazard to suggest that it is likely that the average punter sees "exertion" as something more energic, akin if you will to a frigid, impotent eunuch trying to satisfy your mum
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Sumoking "Blacker claimed disability living allowance with a "high rate mobility component" usually applicable for people who cannot walk - such as claimants with no legs or feet, or blind people."
I think the average man on the Clapham omnibus would say that Blacker doesn't appear to be blind or lack legs and feet.
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I'm 90% sure that blindness is a condition of the eyes
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Whilst I agree with the sentiments of this article, I cannot agree with the suggestion that higher rate disability living allowance is usually reserved for those with missing limbs or being blind. There are many disabilities which are unseen but still require a high level of support by society.
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This is so sad to see. It sounds like he need medical/psychiatric help rather than prosecution. No doubt something for his sentencing report if he's found guilty...
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Sumoking I'm 100% sure that blindness affects someone's ability to walk. It's not a disability that should be taken lightly.
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JaneyS:
The comment by the prosecutor that the higher rate of Disability Living Allowance being usually reserved for the limbless and the blind was clearly a gross misrepresentation of the typical Higher Rate Mobility DLA (now PIP) recipient. It does nothing to help the DWP's case in the minds of any jurors who may have more than a passing understanding of DLA/PIP rules or in the mind of Alan Blacker's Counsel who is sure to challenge the comment.