A BENEFITS cheat who claimed to be a single parent while living with her husband was jailed yesterday for illegally pocketing more than £30,000.

Tracy Parker was paid Income Support and Employment Support Allowance, and got housing benefit and council tax relief for four years, a court was told.

Within weeks of making her claims, she was living with husband Steven at the marital home in Billingham, near Stockton, prosecutor Jonathan Walker said.

He told Teesside Crown Court that Mr Parker’s name appeared listed at the address for things such as subscriptions, bills and cheques.

During a trial, Parker claimed her husband did not use the house, that they were still on good terms, but had contact only through their children.

Mr Walker told Judge Simon Hickey: “There is no suggestion of a lavish lifestyle, and it is more a case of someone burying their head in the sand.”

Alex Bousfield, mitigating, said: “She clearly still stands by what she was saying during her trial, but, of course, her version has been found to be untrue.

“She does seem to be accepting of the findings, and accepts that she is going to be punished. She accepts the starting point is a custodial sentence.”

Mr Bousfield said Mr Parker was in court to support his wife - who suffers from a serious spinal problem - but insisted they did not live together.

He said the Department for Work and Pensions is clawing the money back from Parker’s benefits, and she is taking steps to sort out her finances.

Judge Hickey told her: “This is a significant fraud in the sense you took a significant opportunity to claim either fraudulently from the outset, or certainly within a very short space of time. You did not tell the authorities of your change of circumstances.

“There is only one sentence and that’s custody, and it has to be immediate.”

Parker, of Patterdale Avenue, Stockton, who appeared in court on two crutches, was found guilty of four charges of failing to notify a change in circumstances, and was jailed for 15 months.