[A] WOMAN has been sentenced by a judge for a £47,000 benefits fiddle.
Carlisle Crown Court heard 57-year-old Mei Ching Yee fraudulently claimed housing benefit, council tax relief and income support.
She did so over a period of six years and one month, failing to tell both the Department for Work and Pensions, and Allerdale Borough Council, she had capital above the prescribed upper limit.
Yee was said to have falsely claimed £47,054.20 while having up to £67,000 of savings to her name.
She admitted dishonestly failing to notify the two bodies of a change in circumstances, between 2010 and 2016.
The court heard Yee, of Casson Road, Workington, was both “embarrassed and ashamed” of her criminal conduct.
Judge Barbara Forrester suspended an eight-month prison sentence for a year, having heard about the defendant’s chronic ill health.
Yee, who has started to repay the cash, must observe an electronically-monitored two-month night-time curfew.
