A carer has spoken of his frustration with the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) after he was told to repay nearly £9,000.

This equates to £30 a month over the next 25 years.

Richard Munson, from Suffolk, received weekly Carer’s Allowance, external payments from the end of 2020 to the middle of 2023 after giving up his full-time job to care for his wife, Wendy.

Last September, the 60-year-old football steward was informed he was no longer entitled to the benefit and owed £6,801 because he hadn't told them about his new part-time job - which he disputed.

But after querying the allegation and asking officers to recalculate the amount, the DWP then said he owed even more - a total of £8,523.

Mr Munson, who now works at Ipswich Town’s Portman Road ground on match days and as a school minibus driver, told the BBC he always kept the department up-to-date and never tried to mislead them.

Mr Munson said he was told not to worry and it would “sort itself out over the year”, only to then be informed he had received too many carer’s allowance payments.

He said: “They overpaid me, I can accept that, but what really gripes me is they took three years to realise they were paying me something I was not entitled to.

"They also gave me a £50 penalty for 'falsely claiming'"

"They also gave me a £50 penalty for 'falsely claiming', which I didn't, not knowingly anyway."

“There’s an attitude in this country that if you’re on benefits you are a scrounger but there’s a hell of a lot of people who need those benefits and are genuine.

"The benefits system is a minefield and heavily stacked in favour of putting people off claiming.”

After unsuccessfully appealing against the DWP, Mr Munson settled for a £30-per-month repayment plan, having decided against the “gamble” of going to court.

He added the loss of the weekly benefit of roughly £70 had hit him and his 59-year-old wife hard and balancing the books had become “even more of a struggle”.

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He said: “Losing the Carer’s Allowance was bad enough but having to pay back the best part of £9,000… I’m now worse off than I was before I cashed in my pension.

“If they had notified me earlier this all could have been sorted without a problem – but now I’m going overdrawn every month and it's just on a downward spiral.

“Yes, I’ve had a pay rise this year but that is just wiped out overnight because everything is going up - I hardly ever go for a beer anymore because I can’t afford to.”

The DWP has been contacted for comment.