A POLICEMAN who worked as a parachute instructor while off sick has been sentenced to a 150-hour community punishment order after admitting deception charges.

Bury-based Pc Andrew Hesketh, aged 43, was on long term leave with a back injury and taking legal action to get full sick pay when it was revealed he had another job -- helping people to parachute 3,000ft out of planes at an airfield in Lincolnshire. He was also collecting £2,194 from the Benefits Agency.

Police chiefs only learned of Hesketh's new job after receiving a tip-off.

Hesketh, who now lives in Lincolnshire, admitted at Manchester's Minshull Street Crown Court eight charges of deception between June 2001 and January 2002. He is now working as a £12,000 a year car salesman.

The court was told that Hesketh was originally injured in 1996 while attending an emergency callout to a school.

He fell off some railings and ruptured a disc in his back but, after returning to work, he claimed in October 2000 to have slipped on a freshly-mopped floor at Bury police station.

He said there had been no warning signs erected, and in November 2000 went on long-term sick with backache and sciatica, claiming his original injury had been aggravated.

He was on fully-paid sick leave for six months. When his pay was halved in February 2001 he appealed, claiming the injury had happened while on duty.

He lost the appeal, but if he had been successful he could have received as much as £21,253.

Several cleaners who had been working at Bury police station gave statements saying the accident never happened.

Hesketh was living in Bury when he began claiming incapacity benefit, but he moved to a bungalow near Scunthorpe without notifying Greater Manchester Police.

His benefits claim was transferred to Lincolnshire. He continued to claim the money, but began working as a parachute instructor.

He worked for a company called Target Sky Sports, based at an airfield in Brigg, where his wife was doing catering. In October 2001, Greater Manchester Police received an anonymous tip-off about Hesketh's activities and visited the parachute centre to investigate his activities.

Hesketh has now paid all the money back to the Department of Social Security and is no longer pursuing a civil action against Greater Manchester Police. He resigned from the force in May 2002.

Wayne Jackson, defending, said: "He accepts he has been foolish."

Judge John Burke said: "This was a most extraordinary course of conduct by you -- a man with an unblemished record, not in a desperate financial state. Police officers who behave dishonestly bring shame on the service."

Outside court, Det Chief Insp Mike Freeman, of the discipline and complaints branch, said: "This was a deliberate and systematic deception which no doubt would have continued had Hesketh not been caught."

Hesketh never worked as a PC again.

He has a new job and is on £12,000 a year now.

"He wasn't parachuting out of planes, he was a ground-based instructor.

"