A MOTHER-OF-THREE who swindled nearly £16,000 in income support has been jailed.
Melanie Nicholson pleaded poverty but secretly owned one property and part-owned two more which housed paying tenants.
The 29-year-old received £15,892 in benefits between July 1997 and July 2000 which she was not entitled to.
Nicholson denied obtaining by deception but was found guilty by a jury at Durham Crown Court.
She was before the crown court at Newcastle yesterday to be sentenced and Judge David Wood jailed her for three months.
He said: "You still don't really accept you have committed any criminal offence in relation to these matters and you have certainly not expressed any remorse."
Nicholson, of Wordsworth Gardens, Dipton, County Durham, will have her children, aged, 12, ten and four, looked after by her mother until she is released
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