A man from Greenwich has been prosecuted for fraudulently claiming £35,000 in delay repay compensation from train company Greater Anglia.

Michael Parker, 24, of Godstow Road Greenwich, claimed delay repay compensation multiple times for the same ticket in December 2019, during a period of disruption on the Greater Anglia Network.

He was issued an eight-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months and has been given a community order and 50 hours of unpaid work.

Fraud investigators at Greater Anglia discovered the scam after looking into delay repay claims made during the pandemic and found that Parker had used several aliases to make multiple claims.

Parker was then investigated to the British Transport Police and later charged.

He appeared in Inner London Crown Court, pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit fraud and has been prosecuted.

Head of revenue protection at Greater Anglia, Kim Bucknell, said: “We want customers who genuinely are delayed if their journey is disrupted to claim delay repay compensation, but we will not tolerate people who abuse the system.

“In the last two years we have recovered £500,000 from people who have fraudulently claimed delay repay.

“During the pandemic, when we had fewer customers, we analysed claims from the whole of 2019 and early 2020 and pursued everyone who had put in a false claim.

“Since then we have also tightened up our delay replay compensation process to make it more difficult for people trying to make fraudulent claims and have rejected tens of thousands of pounds of false claims.

“Claiming fraudulently is the same as stealing from Greater Anglia – and it leaves the company with less money for investment which could result in fares going up for everyone.”

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