A mother from Gravesend who fiddled more than £17,000 in benefits to clear her debts has been spared jail.

Mum of two Julie Hills had claimed income support, housing and council tax benefit as a single parent, but failed to tell Gravesham council or the Department for Work and Pensions when her boyfriend moved back into her home in Exeter Road.

The couple had discussed her benefits but decided she should carry on claiming to help pay off some of their outstanding bills, Dartford Magistrates’ Court heard on Monday, August 16.

Hills, 38, was told she could have been sent to prison had she not pleaded guilty and begun to make repayments on the cash she had falsely claimed between August 2007 and September 2009.

Instead she was ordered to carry out 120 hours of community service.