A SICK pensioner jailed for six months for benefit fraud has had his sentence slashed after a judge ruled it was too harsh.

Leslie Edwards, 70, was jailed for 26 weeks on Friday for falsely claiming more than £35,000 in council tax benefit, pension credit and housing benefit over six years.

But Edwards, of Fairfield Road, won an appeal at Salisbury Crown Court today and had six weeks wiped from his jail term.

His lawyer, Bob Scott, argued that the retired decorator’s ill health and imminent surgery to remove half of one of his lungs should have resulted in a lower sentence.

His full admission to the Department for Work and Pensions, and the fact that he had waited two years to be brought to court, should also have counted in his favour.

And Mr Scott argued that magistrates had incorrectly calculated the 30 per cent reduction in sentence Edwards was due in return for his guilty plea.

Judge Richard Parkes QC refused a request to suspend the sentence because, he said, defrauding the taxpayer of a “very substantial amount of money” over a period of several years had to be met with an immediate jail term. “That message must go out.”

But, agreeing to cut the sentence, he said: “It was hanging over the head of an elderly and not very well man for a remarkably long period and the court could have made a greater allowance for that.”

Edwards missed a scheduled operation on Tuesday that would have improved his quality of life by allowing him to speak in full sentences again and walk further, the court heard.

But because magistrates had refused to grant him bail, he had been in custody and the prison authorities had not been able to get him to hospital on time. The next available date for the surgery was in May, but Edwards had not been due for release until the 13th of that month.

Judge Parkes said: “At least he can now make arrangements for an operation in May.”

Mr Scott said Edwards had so far repaid £600.

“Clearly it’s going to take an awful long time to pay back £35,000,” he said.

Edwards’ claim for pension credit had been made genuinely, but he had “plainly lied” to the authorities when his wife started working, Judge Parkes said.

The court heard Edwards had a history of dishonesty.