A FOOTBALL steward who swindled more than £20,000 in benefits has been spared prison.

For nearly seven years, Harold Ellis, 50, failed to admit he was working at Anfield and Goodison Park.

Instead, he continued to fraudulently claim income support and was overpaid £20,957.

Prosecutor Henry Riding told Liverpool Crown Court it was not Ellis’s first offence.

Ellis, of Swallow Fields, Fazakerley, was jailed for two months in February, 1994, for benefit fraud.

Judge Nigel Gilmour agreed to suspend a six-month sentence for 18 months, after learning Ellis would have been entitled to about £10,000 in benefits, if he had applied legitimately.

Alaric Walmsley, defending, told the court Ellis had initially begun to claim legitimately in 1994 following an accident.

But he begun to work for LFC in December, 1998, opening the stadium gates at half- time and at the end of the matches.”

Ellis, who admitted one charge of benefit fraud, received between £5 and just over £100 for a day’s work.

Mr Walmsley added that, if honest, he would have been entitled to £10,000.

Judge Gilmour ordered Ellis to do 200 hours’ unpaid work in the community, with any breach ending with the jail term.