Benefits cheat is ordered to finish work

A Perth benefits cheat who obtained £8000 by claiming she was a single mother has been ordered to complete her unpaid work - or face jail.

For more than a year, 38-year-old Tracey Young, of Bute Drive, North Muirton, was paid the cash despite living with her partner, Craig - whom she later married - and being financially supported by him.

She subsequently used the cash to pay off debts she had accumulated by playing internet slot machines.

She was spared jail by Sheriff Lindsay Foulis and instead had a 200-hour Community Payback Order imposed.

But the court was told that only 47 hours had been completed and her lawyer asked the court to vary the order.

But Sheriff Foulis rejected as “unrealistic”a bid to have a Restriction of Liberty Order imposed instead.

According to a background report, the sheriff noted that she had been spending all her money on online betting.

If she was confined to her home for 12 hours a day, there could be a temptation for her to revert to her previous habit.

He told Young to complete the 153-hour balance of the original order and re-iterated an earlier warning that she was“in danger”of ending up behind bars if the unpaid work was not done.

Young admitted that between January 1, 2016, and January 3, 2017, at her home, she knowingly made false representations to the Department of Work and Pensions in respect of a telephone claim for Income-Related Employment and Support Allowance.

As a result, she was paid £8000 to which she was not entitled.

But the DWP received information that she was living with Craig Young and that he was financially supporting her.

Young had originally been accused of dishonestly obtaining almost £13,000 in different benefits from both the DWP - and Perth and Kinross Council.

It had been alleged that between July 1, 2015, and January 3, 2017, she had obtained £9564.85 in allowance benefits.

But she had her guilty plea accepted to the reduced amount and the shorter timescale.

A not guilty plea was accepted to a second charge of obtaining £3367.99 in Housing Benefit from Perth and Kinross Council between July 1, 2015, and January 15, 2017.

The court was told previously that Young had been interviewed on September 7, 2017, and made “various admissions”.

Inquiries revealed that Craig Young visited the accused regularly and“stayed over”two or three times a week.

The couple were later married at the Huntingtower Hotel, near Perth, in September 2017.