A former councillor said he had no regrets about cheating council tax payers out of tens of thousands of pounds.

Peter Paffett brazenly told fraud investigators he would not have been able to give his daughter an education without it.

He dishonestly claimed up to £53,000 in council tax and housing benefit after he and his wife suffered a series of financial disasters.

They lost their home after a £20,000 overdraft “went sour” and his wife Florence's freight business got into difficulty.

Paffett, 76, a former Horsham parish councillor, and his wife were forced to move into social housing.

He legitimately claimed benefits he was entitled to from 1994, but later failed to declare a civil service pension from when he worked for Customs and Excise.

Paffett, who suffered a series of strokes in 2006, also failed to disclose the couple had a joint savings account with £7,000 in it.

If he had revealed the information he would not have been entitled to receive as much as he did in benefits from Horsham District Council between 1994 and 2009.

Paffett, of Bracken Grove, Horsham, admitted 13 charges of benefit fraud and appeared at Hove Crown Court for sentence yesterday. Paffett, who has a number of serious health problems, was given a one year conditional discharge and was ordered to pay £500 towards prosecution costs.