Corby child maintenance dodger warned he must pay up or face jail sentence

A Priors Hall dad has been forced by a court to pay his child maintenance arrears and has been warned if he doesn’t, he could be jailed.

Matthew Edward Glass owed £4,557.83 to his former partner in child support.

But the Child Maintenance Service had to take him to court to recover the money because all other means open to them had failed.

Court documents show that Glass, 46, of Furlong Close, was ordered to appear at Northampton Magistrates’ Court on February 14 because he ‘wilfully’ refused to pay back the money.

The CMS asked magistrates to consider sending him to prison and Glass admitted the non-payment.

But magistrates suspended the sentence – of 42 days in jail – after Glass promised to pay the arrears. He must make his first payment of £400 before the end of February.

In recent months, the CMS has been cracking down on non-payers in Corby. In December, a warrant was issued for the arrest of Daniel Jarvis, of Kesteven Way, Little Stanion, after he failed to pay £2,075 in child support.

In November magistrates agreed to issue a warrant for the arrest of James Gray, of Park View, Priors Hall, after he refused to pay more than £4,000.

And last May, Gareth Hammett, of West Glebe Road, was told he had to pay more than £9,000 in arrears or face jail.

The Child Support Act 1991 allows the DWP to take non-payers to court and apply to magistrates to remove their driving licence, passport or, in the most serious of cases, to jail them.

In the year up to December 2021, only 105 suspended prison sentences for child maintenance arrears were issued across the whole of England and Wales.

Before taking court action, the DWP has normally attempted to collect arrears direct from wages or bank accounts. The CMS also has the power to ask the court to force the sale of a home or remove expensive goods to pay the arrears. If these steps fail, or prove impossible, it is at this stage that the DWP asks the court to consider imprisonment.