A woman justified claiming nearly £33,000 in benefits despite being married - because she wasn’t getting any action in the bedroom.

Doreen Bowdler, 67, pocketed the money since 2009 despite living with husband, maintenance man Darian Minas, in Margate.

But when she was challenged about her lies, she said she regarded it as a "sham marriage" because the couple didn’t sleep together.

Bowdler told Department for Work and Pensions officials she considered herself a housekeeper - despite the house being in both names and the couple going on holiday together.

Canterbury Crown Court heard that the mum-of-three had now agreed to repay the £32,986.01 she claimed at £5 a week - which will take her 127 years.

But she avoided going straight to prison after the judge gave her an eight-month jail sentence suspended for a year for the fraud.

Prosecutor Alex Rooke told how after turning 60, Bowdler was told her payments for Income Support would change.

She told officials she was divorced and living alone at her home in Victoria Road and looked after a grandson "who she was bringing up as her own".

"Bowdler said she lived on her own while all the while she was living under the same roof as her husband Darian Minas," he added.

In September 2015 she was confronted about her lies but claimed she was just "his tenant" and didn’t consider herself married because of the lack of sex.

Her lawyer Kerry Waitt told Judge Heather Norton: "This was just a sham marriage... a marriage of convenience.

"The marriage didn’t work and they lived separate lives within the same house and sleeping in separate beds."