Man used dead brother’s name to claim dole

A MAN claimed €95,000 in dole and rent allowance payments by pretending for 15 years that he was his dead brother.

The man’s brother had died in 1960, aged 18 months.

Each week over a period of 15 years, Kiernan Bellew signed on at the labour exchange in his deceased brother’s name and received between 300 and 550 a month. At the same time he was signing on in Dublin and receiving money there.

Yesterday, Bellew was sentenced at Dundalk Circuit Criminal Court to two years in prison for defrauding the Department of Social, Community and Family Affairs.

Bellew, with an address at Rory O’Connor House, Hardwicke Street, Dublin, and The Mall, Drogheda, pleaded guilty to 18 sample counts on dates from the March 1, 1987, to February 28, 2002.

They all related to obtaining cash from the labour exchange at the North Quay in Drogheda between those dates. The 54-year-old managed to claim €74,254 in unemployment benefit and €21,267 in rent allowance.

None of the money has been recovered. Detective Garda Tom Quinn said that Bellew was known to an employee of the department in Dublin where he would sign on monthly and it was when the employee moved to Drogheda in 2001 that he was recognised. He had been signing on there using the name Gary Bellew.

Gardaí were contacted and on February 26, 2002, he was arrested on suspicion of forgery.

He made a full statement to gardaí in which he said his brother had died aged one-and-a-half years in 1960.

When Bellew’s second marriage had broken down and he was deported from the United States in the late 1980s, he heard of someone else claiming in the name of their dead brother and decided to do the same.

Rory O’Hanlon SC defending said Bellew had a chronic alcohol dependency problem, had held his hands up at once and had no previous convictions.

He lost his job as a driver in the French embassy following the publicity over this case.

However, references were handed into the court from the embassy and from the French ambassador.