A 33-year-old woman has been sentenced to 150 hours community service after admitting a benefit fraud worth £7,118.

Anna Elizabeth Shimmin, of Close Ollay, Ramsey, failed to tell authorities she was working at Heron and Brearley while claming income support benefit.

She pleaded guilty to six counts of benefit fraud, committed between May 2018 and September 2019, and was also ordered to pay £150 prosecution costs.

Prosecuting advocate Rachael Braidwood told the court how Shimmin had been claiming income support since September 2017.

In May 2019 an allegation was received that she was working.

Checks established that she was working as a post office clerk at Heron and Brearley.

Her hours were said to have ranged between five and 22 per week.

She was invited for an interview with social security but failed to attend and was then invited for a second interview.

Shimmin then submitted a change of circumstances form saying that she had been working.

When interviewed Shimmin told social security officers that she thought if her hours were under 16 for a week she did not need to declare them but admitted she should have checked on this.

Her non-declaration had resulted in an overpayment of benefits totalling £7,118.14 which she was said to already be paying back at a rate of £15 per week.

Defence advocate Jane Gray said that Shimmin was a single mother of two children and that the claim had not been fraudulent from the outset.

Ms Gray said that Shimmin was under the misapprehension that she could still claim benefits if she was working under 16 hours a week.

The advocate said: ’She was initially contracted to work five hours a week but she often found her employer requested her to work more than five hours. Sometimes it was more than 16 but she worried about loss of income.

’If she had made a claim for new benefits, it would have cancelled her previous benefits and there would have been that period of time with no income for five weeks.’

’She accepts she shouldn’t have buried her head in the sand.’

Ms Gray went on to say that Shimmin had suffered ill health and a bereavement.

The advocate said that her client had since been deemed eligible for Employed Persons’ Allowance (EPA).

Magistrates ordered Shimmin to pay the prosecution costs at a rate of £10 per fortnight, deducted from benefits.