We think this is a load of old squit!!!

One of Norfolk's most prominent and outspoken politicians has been told to pay back more than £17,000 in incapacity benefit - because he was also claiming thousands of pounds in expenses for his council work.

Cliff Jordan - former Tory leader of Breckland Council and a serving county councillor - will next week appear before an appeal tribunal, where he will seek to fight the ruling made by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

Mr Jordan, 61, has been on incapacity benefit since 1992, after sustaining a back injury in 1981.

But he was ordered to return the money after the DWP discovered he had been claiming benefits while drawing an allowance from Breck-land and the county council - taking his income above the permissible limit for a benefit claimant.

This year his basic allowance for both councils will total £11,491, with additional funds for serving on council committees.

Mr Jordan has made a name for himself on the county's political scene after joining Breckland Council in 1991, serving as the authority's leader from 1998 to 2005 and unsuccessfully contesting the Norfolk County Council leadership last year.

He was criticised in 2003 when he oversaw a 40pc rise in Breckland councillors' allowances, costing the taxpayer an extra £100,000 and allowing him to claim £22,615-a-year - one of the highest rates in the county.

Mr Jordan, who represents the Upper Yare ward on Breckland Council and Yare and All Saints on Norfolk County Council, has also become known for his outspoken comments - at one point calling tax-payers "nosey sods", while Breckland's leader, after answers were demanded over delays to an £18m sports project at Dereham and Thetford.

Next Wednesday, at a tribunal in Norwich, he will challenge the DWP's decision that he should pay back the £17,000-plus in incapacity benefit - claiming he has never knowingly done anything wrong.

Last night, Mr Jordan, of Crane Close, Dereham, said he stood by drawing an allowance since his taking his place on Breckland Council in 1991 and said he never used it as an income, only to cover his council expenses.

He told the EDP: "In 1992 the doctor said to me 'you are going on long term sick' and it was changed from sickness benefit to incapacity benefit.

"The council costs money and you just claim expenses - and I did that quite happily. It never occurred to me that you have to tell them (the DWP).

"I was never under the impression I was doing anything wrong. I never used that (council) allowance for my personal income - that money is all expenses for work I have done.

"You get a flat allowance and I have often said that is not enough to do the job properly."

He said the DWP first queried his benefit payments after he disclosed information about his financial situation on tax returns three years ago.

"I was filling in questions to do with my tax about three years ago, about allowances and this and that, and that is how it came about," he said.

Mr Jordan sustained his injury after falling off the back of a truck while working as a gardener.

He said his injury had left him with numbness in his right leg and a constant ache in his back, wrist and shoulder which worsened to "sharp pulses" after sustained activity. He also suffers discomfort from sitting still for too long.

Despite spending seven years overseeing the provision of essential services for about 120,000 people in Breckland, he insisted that his council work was never as strenuous as full-time employment.

He said: "Incapacity means you struggle to do a proper job - you can run the council. Who in the private sector would want to appoint somebody who wants to lay down all the time?

"But it does not mean that you are dead from the neck down.

"What I got as an income per year is pence per resident in Breckland. They were paying for me to go out and bat for Breckland. I bought about £200M into Breckland Council while I was leader."

Mr Jordan claims he is fighting his case to expose discrimination against disabled people serving on the council and the discrepancy between being allowed to draw an allowance and claim Jobseekers Allowance but not incapacity benefit.

He said the contested sum stood at slightly less than £18,000.

Under the DWP permitted work rules, incapacity benefit recipients can only earn up to £78-a-week for a period of up to 52 weeks and continue to receive benefit.