A JOB seeker who turned down work because he was better off on benefits has hit out at the recruitment boss who branded him a lazy scrounger.

Dean Scollan, who lives in a bedsit at Henwick Road YMCA, St John’s, Worcester, was left angry after he was criticised on Facebook and in a series of damning texts by a recruitment boss after he turned down one of 50 jobs at food factory Senoble, in Lower Broadheath, near Worcester.

The 37-year-old father-of-three, who has been unemployed for the last two years, was tagged in a scathing Facebook message by Danny James, owner and national business development manager at recruitment agency Consistent Personnel.

In the message, 29-year-old Mr James attacked him for not taking the three-month packaging role, which paid the minimum wage of £6.31 per hour.

He said the position required no skills and his three-year-old daughter could have done the work.

Mr James’s Facebook message read: “You give someone a job that has been scrounging from us taxpayers for months if not years for them not to turn up on the first day of work!!! Lying, thieving a******!!!”

Mr James also told him, by text, that he would be contacting the job centre to have his benefits stopped.

However, Mr Scollan says he has no power to do this and he is continuing his claim.

In one text, Mr James said: “People like me do not work my bxxxxxxx off for lazy f****** like you to sit on your a*** and play computer games!!!!!”

Mr Scollan said: “I feel really angry about what he said.

“I do want to work but what is the point of me going if it’s going to make me worse off? I’m not going to work for peanuts. If the finances were right, I would have gone for the induction. I would have got a pushbike and gone up there but it wasn’t worth the money.”

Mr Scollan went to the police station in Worcester to report the Facebook comments and he was advised to block Mr James. He is also considering meeting MP Robin Walker about the matter and says he is seeking legal advice. He said: “I want compensation out of him [Mr James]. He should not be putting things like that on Facebook. I wish he had spoken to me face-to-face.”

But Mr James defended his comments, saying Mr Scollan simply had not turned up to start work. He said: “I know I shouldn’t use the social networking sites for this but he got me so annoyed [when] he didn’t turn up for work.”

THE RECRUITMENT BOSS: 'HE DOESN'T WANT TO WORK'

DANNY James says people like Dean Scollan do not want to work and have no intention of doing so.

The 29-year-old, the national business development manager at Worcester recruitment firm Consistent Personnel, admitted he was angry after the father-of-three refused to take a job.

He claimed Mr Scollan did not ring, or text, to inform him he was not going to attend an induction session at the Lower Broadheath firm, the latest in a series of rejected offers of work.

“He’s not had a job in God knows how long and the day I get him one, he didn’t turn up and told me his work adviser had told him not to go,” he said. “That’s not acceptable.

“I have offered him two jobs in the last three months. For the first one, he said he couldn’t go because he had an appointment at the job centre, and the second, he accepted but didn’t turn up. He doesn’t want to work.

“If I lost my job, I would have a job tomorrow, even if it was cleaning toilets. I don’t understand the mindset of these people.”

THE JOB SEEKER: 'I WOULD HAVE BEEN WORSE OFF'

A DIFFICULT break-up from a partner has left father-of-three Dean Scollan facing hard times.

The 37-year-old, who has worked as a labourer, a block paver and a tyre fitter, has been trying to find work for two years in a bid to get himself back on his feet. 

He is in the process of completing a course in the hope he can become a door supervisor.

And he says he was more than willing to take the job in Lower Broadheath, but it meant he would have been worse off than he currently is.

He saie: “There was no point turning up. What’s the point in wasting my time? Financially I’m not going to be better off. I would also have to make my own way there.”

His rent at the YMCA, of £250 a week, which includes bills and two meals, is covered by housing benefit, which he would lose if he took the job, with £29.01 a week deducted from his Jobseeker’s Allowance.

The Senoble job would only earn him £200 to £220 per week after tax, less than he received on benefits, he said.

He also said he does not own a computer so did not understand how he was supposed to be sitting at home playing computer games as Mr James alleges in his text message.

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