A BENEFIT cheat who had been gifted around £650,000 from his mother’s £2.7m Lottery win has been jailed for a year.

Clive Penfold was given the sentence despite a judge hearing he was a full-time carer for his two seriously ill children.

The 39-year-old’s lawyer had urged the court not to lock him up, stressing that replacing him with a full-time carer for the children would impose a heavy burden on taxpayers.

But a judge told Penfold: “I cannot accede to that submission for perfectly obvious reasons, namely the scale of the offending and the persistence of it.”

Judge Jeremy Carey added: “You find yourself in the most unattractive of positions. You effectively stole £40,000 over a period of years and you did so in what is for this court almost unique circumstances.

“You had been the beneficiary of your mother’s good fortune. She gave you £400,000 and subsequently gave you further six-figure sums.”

Maidstone Crown Court heard that Penfold falsely claimed £30,325 in income support from September 1997 to April 2005 and £9,445 in council tax benefit from September 1997 to August 2006.

Harriet Bathurst-Norman, prosecuting, said Penfold, who was living with his partner and her three children, had three bank accounts.

Crucially, she said, in June 2000 over £180,000 was paid into one of the accounts. About £75,000 was transferred out a few months later. There was a movement of funds between the accounts.

Penfold, of Centurion Walk, Park Farm, Ashford, admitted four charges of making false statements to obtain benefit. He has repaid the money.

Thomas Restell, defending, told the court: “The trouble, if trouble it is, starts with a Lottery win - a lot of money, far more than most of us can comprehend having for ourselves. It ran into millions.

“That is how we get these sums washing around.”

Mr Restell said £400,000 Penfold was given from his mother’s win in 1995 was disposed of on “fripperies” such as cars. He did not put some away for a rainy day, which was around the corner, he said.

She then gave him £100,000 to buy a house and money was put into a bond.