A SUCCESSFUL wedding photographer who "wickedly" claimed '110,000 in benefits while running a lucrative business has been jailed for three years.

Amin Hirani, 45, from Bolton, earned at least '438,000 from 1989 to 2002 taking pictures of Asian marriage ceremonies.

But he did not declare his business to the Inland Revenue and cheated them out of '75,000 in tax.

During the same period, he was fraudulently claiming housing benefit, income support, council tax benefit and supplementary benefit.

At Bolton Crown Court, Recorder H L Bentham, QC, told weeping Hirani: "One of the hallmarks of civilised society is that the poor and underprivileged are helped from government funds. We live in such a society. It can only operate if the people making the claims are honest.

"You deliberately and wickedly took money that should have been going into the pockets of the poor. The figures involved are breathtaking."

Benefit

The court heard that Hirani, from Filton Avenue, Daubhill, Bolton, falsely claimed '95,600 in supplementary benefit and income support, '10,333 in housing benefit and '4,567 in council tax benefit.

A joint investigation by the Department for Work and Pensions, the Inland Revenue and the police started after an anonymous tip-off. Hirani pleaded guilty to 15 charges of false accounting over benefit claims and one of cheating the public revenue.

Paul Taylor, prosecuting, said Hirani, who has four children and came to Britain in 1972 from Uganda, had studied photography at college.

He later set up his own company trading under the name RAS.

"It was very successful and he used state-of-the-art equipment, including video cameras," said Mr Taylor. "He advertised in Yellow Pages and on the internet. He catered for the top end of the market."

He added that Hirani could make up to '1,000 per wedding, as there were several ceremonies over several days.

Substantial

Investigators discovered about 15 different bank accounts, and from bank statements it emerged he had earned '438,000 from 1989 to 2002, when he was arrested.

But Mr Taylor said a substantial amount of his work was paid for in cash and the amount could not be established.

Hirani told one witness that he reckoned he was earning between '30,000 and '40,000 a year as a photographer. As early as 1988, he was using a camera which cost '4,000.

Mr Ahmed Nadim, defending, said: "The most powerful mitigation is that having committed serious offences over a substantial amount of time he has not sought to compound that error by contesting it."

Mr Nadim claimed Hirani had been "cleaned out" of the proceeds of his earnings over the last 20 years by his wife during a bitter and protracted divorce.

Hirani, who has since remarried, has so far paid back '12,000 to the DWS. A confiscation hearing regarding the case was adjourned until November 30.

Recorder Bentham said Hirani's actions justified a four-year sentence, but he had reduced it to three due to his guilty plea.

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