A grandmother who pocketed more than £15,000 in benefits she was not entitled to has narrowly avoided an immediate prison sentence.

Lynn Rooney made spurious claims to the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) as well as Stockton Borough Council when she failed to declare that she owned a second property.

The 64-year-old was overpaid to the tune of £14,154.19 from the DWP and £1,107.20 from the local authority in housing benefit, Teesside Crown Court heard.

Rooney’s scam came unstuck when the DWP became aware of a mortgage application for a house in Billingham and an investigation revealed it belonged to the defendant.

Rooney, of Dunbar Road, Billingham, was found guilty of making the false benefit claims between April 4, 2020, and October 21, 2021, following a trial at Teesside Magistrates’ Court.

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Emma Williams, mitigating, said her client was the sole carer for her teenage granddaughter and had made the false claims while she was dealing with her mother’s fatal cancer diagnosis.

“At the time of the offence she was looking after her mother who had a terminal cancer diagnosis and she has since passed away,” she said.

“She was forced to quit work when her mother’s health declined and she has since been diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis which prevents her from being able to work.”

Miss Williams said Rooney maintains that she simply made a mistake when she was filling out the online forms.

Judge Jonathan Carroll was not convinced it was a genuine mistake and sentenced her to eight months in custody suspended for two years.

“You made these claims at a time when you were entitled but not the sum of money you received,” he said.

“There is no conceivable way that you made the same mistake on three occasions. This was a dishonest claim from the start just because you thought that you could get away with it.”

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Judge Carroll told Rooney the main mitigating factor keeping her out of prison was the potential for serious impact on her granddaughter.

Rooney was also ordered to attend 20 rehabilitation activity requirement days and was placed on a six-month electronically tagged curfew between 8pm and 7am.

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