A former Nationals WA candidate already facing charges over an alleged fatal hit-and-run is now facing additional fraud charges.<\/p>\n
Benjamin Thomas Simpkins, 26, was arrested in May after the death of a 49-year-old man in Katanning.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He is facing three serious driving charges in relation to that incident and the matters are proceeding through court.<\/p>\n
Today police have charged Mr Simpkins with attempting to pervert the course of justice, gaining benefit by fraud and using a forged record with intent to defraud.<\/p>\n
In a statement, WA Police said further inquiries as a result of the driving charges allegedly identified he had falsely claimed to hold a university degree.<\/p>\n
Police will allege he used falsified academic records to obtain employment in June 2023 as a cardiac scientific officer at a Western Australian hospital.<\/p>\n
It will also be alleged he provided false information regarding his volunteer work within the local community and that this information was supplied to the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
Police also allege that in October 2023, he used falsified documentation in an attempt to gain admission to other universities for further education purposes.<\/p>\n
He is also facing two further counts of driving with a suspended licence in May of this year.<\/p>\n
Mr Simpkins will face court on the new charges next month.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A former Nationals WA candidate already facing charges over an alleged fatal hit-and-run is now facing additional fraud…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":72417,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,101814,6022,2774,101815,463,464],"class_list":["post-72416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-benjamin-thomas-simpkins","tag-fraud","tag-hit-and-run","tag-nationals-wa","tag-perth-news","tag-wa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72416"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72416\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72417"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}