Benefits fraudster told to pay back £20,000 or go to prison

A woman who raked in £20,000 in handouts after lying to benefits bosses about being a single mother was told she will go to jail for a year if she does not pay back the money.

Elizabeth Moir told the Department for Work and Pensions she was a single mother and had split from her husband.

They were actually still living under the same roof, sharing a bank account and taking holidays together.

Moir, of Traquair Gardens, Dundee, was ordered to pay the money back within six months but her lawyer yesterday asked Dundee Sheriff Court for an extension until January.

She said it would allow her husband to access his pension early and clear the outstanding debt.

A sheriff told Moir she had until midnight on January 19 to hand over the money or face a year in jail.

Sheriff Alastair Brown told her: “I will fix the alternative in event of non payment as 12 months imprisonment. That’s automatic. You must make sure that payment is made.”

The court earlier heard a probe was launched after Moir told Dundee City Council her husband, who works full-time for tyre firm Michelin, had not lived with her between 1997 and 2013.

Neighbours told investigators they had, in fact, been living together with their children the entire time.

At a hearing in January Sheriff Lorna Drummond QC imposed a community payback order with 240 hours unpaid work, two years supervision and £20,000 compensation to the Department for Work and Pensions.

She was also placed on a restriction of liberty order for 12 weeks.