A YOUNG mother falsely claimed more than £20,000 in benefits over four-and-a-half years, a court was told.
Samantha Turner, aged 26, failed to declare she was living with a man who then became her husband.
A judge sitting at Plymouth Magistrates' Court warned Turner that major benefit cheats could expect to be sent to prison.
But District Judge Paul Farmer gave her a suspended prison sentence after hearing that she had two young children and had fostered another.
Mr Farmer added that Turner also had no previous convictions and had pleaded guilty as soon as she could.
Turner, of Brayford Close in West Park, Plymouth, admitted four charges of failing to declare a change of circumstances which affected her benefit — that she was living with a man as husband and wife.
The court was told that she had been falsely claiming income support, child benefit, housing benefit and council tax benefit between September 2004 and March 2009. The amount overpaid to Turner amounted to £21,225.
She was given a 12-week jail sentence suspended for 18 months and ordered to carry out 160 hours of unpaid work.
John Major, prosecuting for the Department of Work and Pensions, said that the city council had been told in 2008 that Turner was claiming benefits even though she was married.
He added that an investigation was launched and found that she had married Aram Share on January 28, 2006.
Mr Major said that Turner had made her first claim as a lone parent but she had renewed her claim with information that was "deliberately false" because she was now married.
He said that Turner claimed in interview that Share had not been living with her on a permanent basis.
But Mr Major said that she had already agreed to pay back benefits to the department and the council at the rate of £130 a month.
Richard Speer, for Turner, said that she had been 20 years old and seven months pregnant when she made her original legitimate claim.
He added that she had already had to deal with "a number of issues" during her relatively short marriage.
Mr Speer handed in references from the children's school and the social services.
He said that she had children aged five and four and was fostering a friend's nine-year-old girl informally.
Mr Speer said that the money had not lead to a lavish lifestyle and the family had not even been on a foreign holiday in recent years.
Mr Farmer said: "The message needs to go out loud and clear that people like you who change their circumstances need to report that change to the authorities or they will lose their liberty.
"You are normally a person who tries to do the best by their family and children and does not break the law.
"Only your guilty plea, your previous good character, the fact that you have children have prevented you from receiving immediate custody."
Her husband Aram Share, aged 29, and of the same address, entered no plea to aiding and abetting Turner to make the false benefit claims.
He elected for the case to be heard at Crown Court and was bailed unconditionally to face magistrates again on July 1.
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