A freedy Sedgley woman who fiddled nearly £75k in benefits while maintaining she was running a successful car sales business from her home has been jailed for 21 months.
Emma Crumpton claimed she received death threats from gypsies, who said she would "end up in a ditch" if she stopped selling vehicles from the house in Tipton Road - a story slammed as lies by a crown court judge.
The court heard how the 35 year-old was operating two firms from her home with 58 year-old David Evans, who lived at the same address, and there was also a repair workshop on the premises.
Evans, who falsely claimed benefits totalling £47,991 during the same 11 year period, was jailed for a year at Wolverhampton Crown Court.
Judge Michael Challinor told them both it was a "cynical, sophisticated, deliberate, consistent and well concealed" scam that had gone on for some considerable time.
Crumpton had admitted eight charges of benefit fraud involving a total of £74,995 while Evans pleaded guilty to one similar charge.
Jailing the pair the judge said they had committed a serious fraud on the public purse and added: "This was the result of greed - not for any other reason."
Crumpton and Evans set up Castle Motors and Ex-Lease Cars in 1997 - with vehicles regularly sold by the pair.
In evidence to an earlier court hearing Crumpton said she had first advertised and sold cars for members of the travelling fraternity as a favour.
But she said things because much more "unpleasant" and she was forced to keep the firms going after being threatened with violence.
The judge though ruled at that hearing that Crumpton had fabricated the story to help cover up her benefit fraud and said she was probably known to gypsies "not as a victim but a central figure in a car trading business."
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