A woman spent nearly £23,000 using bogus credit cards to impress her boyfriend, a court was told yesterday .

Teresa Ellison, 34, ran up the bills in nine months after applying for five cards in the name of her boyfriend's previous girlfriend.

It came to light after the other woman - Clare Huberry - received a letter telling her that she owed more than £4,000 to one bank.

She ran a credit check on herself and discovered that she owed a total of £22,973 to five banks, said Alec McFaul, prosecuting.

Ellison admitted applying for the cards from HBO, Barclays, American Express, Citibank and HFC. Money was owed on all of them.

She had also made unsuccessful attempts to get cards from Citibank again and Goldfish.

She was arrested in April and documents were found at the house which supported the charges against her, Teesside Crown Court was told.

Tom Finch, mitigating, said Ellison had recently come to the end of a 13-year relationship and was determined to maintain her relationship with her new boyfriend.

He said the only way she believed she could do that was to continue to provide him with the type of benefits that he used to have with Clare Huberry.

Ellison had repaid £5,500 and now had three jobs to try to earn enough to pay back the remainder.

Ellison, of Surtees Street, Bishop Auckland, who was of previous good character, was given a two-year community rehabilitation order after she pleaded guilty to five charges of obtaining by deception and two attempts between July last year and April this year.