{"id":10334,"date":"2011-05-27T23:16:24","date_gmt":"2011-05-27T23:16:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/151.106.38.4\/2011\/05\/27\/pirates-of-the-caribbean-star-convicted-of-benefit-fraud\/"},"modified":"2011-05-27T23:16:24","modified_gmt":"2011-05-27T23:16:24","slug":"pirates-of-the-caribbean-star-convicted-of-benefit-fraud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/2011\/05\/27\/pirates-of-the-caribbean-star-convicted-of-benefit-fraud\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates of the Caribbean star convicted of benefit fraud"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nIan Mercer at the premiere of the latest Pirates Of The Caribbean film at Disneyland, California earlier this month.\n<\/div>\n
After a stroll down the red carpet with Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz at the premiere of Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Ian Mercer followed it up with a less dignified public appearance – magistrates\u2019 court.<\/div>\n
The 49-year-old actor was at Bedlington Magistrates\u2019 Court, Northumberland after falsely claiming ?2,300 in council tax benefit.<\/div>\n
The court heard that Mercer had failed to notify Northumberland County Council of a change in his circumstances after the breakdown of his marriage.<\/div>\n
Mercer, from Sheepwash, Northumberland, played Gary Mallett in Coronation Street between 1995 and 2000.<\/div>\n
And he has appeared in the TV series Shameless, Heartbeat, A Touch Of Frost, Peak Practice and Waking The Dead.<\/div>\n
He also landed a role in the Hollywood blockbuster Master And Commander alongside Russell Crowe.<\/div>\n
The actor had been living with his estranged wife and two daughters in a rented home in Pegswood, Northumberland.<\/div>\n
But Mercer had claimed council tax benefit for 12 months prior to the breakdown of his marriage.<\/div>\n
Anna Barker, prosecuting, said an anonymous allegation had been made that Mercer had been working but had failed to declare his earnings.<\/div>\n
The court heard he had also failed to declare the ?200,000 sale of a property in Oldham, Lancashire in January 2009.<\/div>\n
Mercer and his wife were both interviewed and it was established that Mrs Mercer was not to blame.<\/div>\n
Mr Graham said his client thought that stopping his unemployment benefit claim meant other benefits he was getting would be stopped automatically.<\/div>\n

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Ian Mercer at the premiere of the latest Pirates Of The Caribbean film at Disneyland, California earlier this month. After a stroll down the red carpet with Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz at the premiere of Pirates Of The Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Ian Mercer followed it up with a less dignified public appearance – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[688],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-infotainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10334\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}