Mother jailed after £52k benefit fraud

MOTHER-OF-ONE Tracy Skidmore has been jailed for eight months after making fraudulent benefit claims of more than £50,000.

The 36-year-old, from Malkin Way, Middleport, failed to notify the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) of changes in her circumstances.

Her offending spanned from October 2001 to August 2007, Stoke-on-Trent Crown Court heard yesterday.

Prosecutor Elizabeth Power, representing the DWP, said: "She failed to notify the DWP that she was living with her partner Alan Webb and then in May 2005, she married him."

Miss Power said the initial claim for income support in 2000 was legitimate but Skidmore failed to notify the authorities she was living with Mr Webb, a full-time bus driver between February 2004 and March 2007.

Skidmore was interviewed in February 2007 and said she had split from Mr Webb six years previously and he lived nearby.

But the DWP obtained Skidmore's marriage certificate which showed she married Mr Webb in May 2005.

The court was told she was overpaid £35,995.26 income support and £16,170.19 council tax and housing benefit.

Skidmore pleaded guilty to four charges of failing to notify the DWP about a change in her circumstances on May 1.

Carl Buckley, defending, conceded the £52,165.45 overpayment crossed the custody threshold. He said his client had a troubled personal history and her offending was not sophisticated.

"It was a legitimate claim that became false," he said. "The proceeds were not used to fund a lavish lifestyle, just general living expenses."

He added that Skidmore, who suffers with epilepsy, has a young child.

Judge Robert Trevor-Jones said he could only suspend the prison sentence if there were exceptional circumstances, which he said there were not.