Benefit cheat claimed £7,300

A CLEANER prosecuted for benefit fraud after illegally claiming more than £7,000 has escaped jail.

Magistrates instead decided to suspend for 12 months a six-week prison sentence for Sylvia Heaton and ordered her to carry out 100 hours unpaid work and pay £150 costs.

Heaton, of Egerton Street, Oldham, had claimed income support from September, 1999, as she was declared unfit to work, and got disability living allowance at the highest rate.

But the 52-year-old, of previous good character, failed to notify the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) that her circumstances changed when she took on a job as a cleaner from February 21, 2006, to April 25, 2007.

A hearing at Oldham Magistrates’ Court yesterday, brought by the DWP, heard she had received overpayments totalling £7,316.

Magistrates said the fact the offence went on for over 14 months, involved so much money and was dishonest from the outset, made the case serious — but an early guilty plea had saved her from jail.