A NANTWICH leisure worker who left her job every week to claim benefits has been ordered to pay back every penny.

Clair Edwards-Steele, 45, pleaded guilty before South and East Cheshire Magistrates Court to two offences of dishonestly failing to report changes in her circumstances that she knew would affect her entitlement to housing benefit, Council Tax support and jobseekers’ allowance.

Edwards-Steele claimed she was unemployed and had no income but her lies were undone after investigators found out she was working for a leisure company.

The court heard Edwards-Steele had left work each week to sign on, so that she would continue to receive benefit payments, in the three months before she was caught.

Cllr Peter Raynes, Cheshire East Council Cabinet member in charge of finance, said: “Benefit fraud will simply not be tolerated by this authority.

“Cheshire East is an enforcing Council and our investigations team works hard and proactively to track down offenders to protect our communities from those who abuse the rules at the expense of taxpayers.”

Magistrates imposed a £125 fine, £20 victim surcharge and ordered Edwards-Steele to pay prosecution costs of £391.

In addition, she will have to repay in full all the benefits totalling £2,100, which she fraudulently received between May 2014 and August 2014.

In a separate prosecution, Kelly Havard, from Macclesfield, pleaded guilty via videolink before Crewe magistrates to two charges of dishonestly failing to report a change in her circumstances that she knew would affect her entitlement to housing benefit and Council Tax support.

Havard, 31, had claimed £1,091 in benefits on the basis that she was a lone parent and on a low income.

However, investigators discovered Havard’s husband had moved in with her in November 2013 and began supporting her and her family financially.

Magistrates ordered Havard to repay the overpaid benefits in full, imposed a fine of £260 and told her to pay £410 court costs.

If you think someone is committing benefit fraud, you can ring the confidential freephone fraud hotline on 0800 389 2787.

Alternatively, you can report suspected fraud via the Council’s website at www.cheshireeast.gov.uk