Mum netted £50,000 through benefits con

An Ashford mum-of-three, whose husband earns £1,700 a month, cheated taxpayers out of nearly £50,000.

For six years lying Isabelle Perry, 50, pocketed a variety of benefits after claiming she was a single mum living at her home in Milton Road.

She was eventually rumbled after being shopped by her mother-in-law.

Even then, she claimed she had started cheating because her husband gambled away all his earnings.

David Perry sat impassively in the public gallery at Canterbury Crown Court as his wife’s barrister accused him of blowing all his cash at the bookies.

But Judge Heather Norton told her: “You claim that he is the root of all your problems because he is the gambler and had failed to contribute to the family’s finances.

“You also claim you were suffering domestic abuse of one form or another… yet I find it difficult to understand that because not only are you still with him, but he is in court supporting you. I find that rather odd.”

The court heard how the double-dealing mum is now repaying the money she took at £5 a week out of her child benefits – which would take her more than 200 years to complete.

Perry pleaded guilty to the benefit fraud, which began in 2006, claiming she was a single mum – even though she had married two years earlier and they were living together.

But prosecutor Robert De Banzies said that checks showed Mr Perry had worked for five employers during that period, adding: “Evidence having come to the ears of the DWP, she was invited to attend an interview. She claimed they had split up in 2006 and he had refused her a divorce.

“She said that he then came to stay periodically and described their relationship as purely platonic, although he did some gardening and shopping for her.”

But checks with Mr Perry’s mother and neighbours revealed the couple lived at the address apart from a couple of weeks during this period.

Paul Hogben, defending, said: “She finds herself in this predicament because of her failure to manage her family’s finances.

“David Perry is a gambler and was working for long periods away from home and wasn’t contributing. He repeatedly threw the money away at the bookies and also on drink. He has said that he knows that he is partly responsible for what happened.

“This lady has a history of terrible relationships and she is a woman so timid that she can barely speak.”

Benefit fraud mum Isabelle Perry claimed her husband gambled away all of his earnings