Editor’s note: The court confirmed that the defendant was acquitted of all charges after the Crown Prosecution Service offered no case against him at trial at Burnley Crown Court on 6 March 2013.

PENSION credit and winter fuel payment frauds — said to involve tens of thousands of pounds — have seen 13 people appear before magistrates in East Lancashire.

Former Burnley Pensions Centre worker Vajid Ashraf, 33, was said to be the lynchpin of two schemes which allegedly saw OAPs’ benefits and fuel handouts illegally transferred to his accomplices’ bank accounts.

Ashraf, of Cumberland Avenue, Burnley, is accused of two offences of conspiracy to defraud, involving his time at the Department of Work and Pensions offices in Blackburn Road, Simonstone.

His case was sent for trial to Burnley Crown Court by Pennine magistrates and he was bailed until July 9, alongside 12 others, each charged with one conspiracy offence.

They are: Shakeel Butt, 27, of Lambeth Street, Blackburn; Zaheer Uddin, 27, of Rhyl Avenue, Burnley; Haseena Dawood, 26 and Risha Shahman, 47, both of Leyburn Avenue, Urmston; Darrell Adore and Sanaa Khan, both 24 and of Mauldeth Road West, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, Manchester; Nabilia Akhtar, 23, of Tempest Road, Leeds.

Wayne Pecco, 31, of Sunnyside Avenue, Stoke-on-Trent; Joanne Wilkins, 32, of Exmouth Grove, Burslem; Qasim Bashir-Raja, 39, of Wickham Street, Leeds; Sima Khan, 27, of Gospel Lane, Solihull and Lucy Gakunga, 21, of Ryland Road, Erdington, Birmingham.

Ashraf must have no contact with Dawood before the next hearing.

Four other men from the Blackburn area have been charged with converting criminal property, worth more than £22,000, as part of the same investigation.

The offences are alleged to have occurred between September 2010 and June 2011.