Suspended jail term for benefit fraudster

AN Oldham pensioner who stole £33,000 of taxpayers money has been given a four-month suspended prison sentence.

Rosaline Bott (62) had been claiming both Income Support and Employment Support Allowance from 2000, declaring an inability to work due to illness with no other income.

But Manchester Crown Court heard Bott, of Lyndon Croft, Manchester Road, had been working as a cleaner from 2005, earning up to £1,200 per month.

Lianne Birkett, prosecuting, said she hadn’t declared the job to the Department for Work and Pensions and over several years had claimed around £33,000 in benefits she wasn’t eligible for.

Bott claimed she had believed she could work up to 20 hours a week without affecting her benefit entitlement. But she had been working up to 35 hours a week and had never made any attempt to check with the DWP. Bott claimed she needed the money to pay debts.

Bott, who had pleaded guilty to two offences of benefit fraud, was told by Judge Maurice Greene: “You stole public money. Ordinarily, people convicted of these sort of offences go straight to prison, but I am going to suspend the sentence.”

The judge said he was suspending the term because of her age, ill health, and the fact that she had not been before the courts for some time.