Benefits cheat (32) took £30,000

A Perthshire woman claimed she was a lone parent and was paid £30,000 in a benefits scam which lasted almost five years.

But 32-year-old Julie Ann Heaps, now of Mill Lade, Blackford, was living with her partner who was in full- time employment, Perth Sheriff Court was told.

Between 2012 and 2014 she obtained £ 15,000 in housing benefit, income support and job seekers’ allowance to which she was not entitled.

She was staying in Perth’s Darnhall Drive at the time and made a series of false statements about her circumstances to officials of the Department of Work and Pensions and Perth and Kinross Council.

She swindled the system out of another £15,000 between 2010 and 2015, while living in Darnhall Drive and then Breadalbane Terrace.

She again falsely declared she lived as a single mum and fraudulently obtained thousands of pounds in child tax credit.

Despite guidelines which indicated a prison sentence could be expected because of the huge sums of cash involved, Heaps was spared jail when she appeared for sentence on Wednesday.

She had recently given birth to twins and Sheriff William Wood said he did not want to deprive her children of a mother.

He ordered her to carry out 300 hours of unpaid work within the next nine months.

She will also be under a curfew order to stay at home from 7pm7am.

Solicitor John McLaughlin said she has three children, two of whom were born in December 2015.

The accused was initially making the “appropriate claims” but failed to advise the authorities of a change in her circumstances.

She was a first offender and was paying back the money.

Sheriff Wood told Heaps: “A custodial sentence can reasonably be expected and the period would be substantial in order to reflect the court’s displeasure and set out a marker to those who think to defraud the state is a victimless crime. Clearly it’s not a victimless crime. You have defrauded the taxpayer.

“In your particular circumstances I have decided not to go down that particular route.

“In my view the interests of justice have to be set against your personal circumstances and any sentence has to be proportionate.”