JUDGE Mr Recorder Nicholas Hall listened carefully to a benefits fraud case in which Bournemouth scroungers Amanda Casserley and Andrew Hayes admitted conning more than £100,000 from the welfare system in ten years.

He described them as ‘a disgrace’. He said they should be going to prison.

But Casserley and Hayes are not in prison. They are still wandering free as birds about the town whose taxpayers they have deliberately and callously fleeced.

And, at time of writing, they haven’t had to pay back a penny!

The pair were slapped – if that’s the right word – with 12-month suspended sentences and Casserley got an additional 180 hours community service.

Given the sum in question, by my reckoning that works out as roughly £500 per hour.

Nice work if you can get it! Except it’s not work, it’s theft, as she was informed by a member of our staff when she had the brass neck to ring this office and complain about our report.

The reason the judge didn’t send them down was because they are parents.

“In many ways I regret this sentence, because you should be going to prison, but your children’s welfare is uppermost in my mind,” said Judge Hall.

So that’s alright then. And never mind the appalling message it has sent out to everyone else’s children.

Which is that, actually, it doesn’t matter how much you steal, or from whom – because the money to pay the benefits they claimed will have come from the taxes of people who DO work and could be on a much smaller income than they were – you won’t really be punished. And, more importantly, even if you are caught you might be able to keep the lot.

Why go out and work for low wages in an apprenticeship or start your own business, or better yourself getting qualified at university when you can just swindle your income out of the state?

Why, indeed, bother to save for a pension, knowing full well that even if you are a fraudster you’ll still be able to mooch off the state in your old age?

Because I think these are the only lessons to be drawn from this episode and the many others like it.

In mitigation Hayes’s lawyer said he suffered from Aspergers’ syndrome, was a recovering alcoholic and a ‘hard-working family man’.

According to his brief: “The motivation behind this offence – the couple split, Casserley claimed benefits she was entitled to but, after they reunited, omitted to mention this to the authorities – was to provide for his family.”

I know that that barristers have to put forward what their clients say. But really, how did she keep a straight face?