After reading the commercial motor about how Chris Roe was doing his bit to make the industry professional and legal, it made me laugh when I read the following in the Leicester Mercury a few days later 
BENEFITS-FRAUD COUPLE AVOID JAIL ‘BY A WHISKER’
10:30 - 09 June 2008
A couple involved in a £15,000 benefit fraud were told they had come “within a whisker” of going to jail.
Mum of five Kathleen Newton (46) admitted fraudulently claiming benefit as a single parent while living with partner Christopher Roe, who was in work.
Roe (48), an HGV driver and instructor, admitted a newly introduced offence of allowing Newton to fail to notify the authorities of a change in her personal circumstances, between January 2004 and October 2005.
At Leicester Crown Court, they each received a 16-week jail sentence suspended for 12 months, as well as a one-year community order.
Both were ordered to do 180 hours of unpaid work and pay £175 costs.
Warning the pair they had narrowly avoided jail, judge Simon Hammond said: “People who indulge in benefit fraud are cheats and are to be despised for that.”
John Snell, prosecuting, said surveillance was carried out at the couple’s address in Thornton Close, Braunstone, after a tip-off.
Inquires revealed Roe had given the address as his home in financial and employment documents.
When quizzed, the pair claimed Roe had only lived at Newton’s address for a month.
Mr Snell said the amount falsely claimed was £15,423 and the couple had known each other since 1994.
They had two children together, born in the 1990s.
At the time of the offences, Newton was claiming to be a single parent living alone with three of her five children.
Andrew Conboy, defending Newton, said the application for benefit began as a valid claim, but she failed to notify a change in her situation because of the unstable relationship with Roe.
He said, since 2006, they were both helping to run a family business.
Jagvir Sangherra, defending Roe, said: "He was coming and going from the address of Miss Newton and was living there towards the end of the investigation.
“He accepts full responsibility for his wrongdoing.”