Benefits cheats caught out after TV reality show appearance escape jail

Kelly Jones claimed she was a single parent with no income for nearly 18 months.

Mrs Jones, 23, also claimed she was living alone with her child, when her partner Steven Jones, 40, who works as a bus driver for First, had moved in with her.

Mrs Jones, who married Mr Jones in April, was overpaid 4,976 in housing benefits, 3,614 in income support and received a 1,171 discount on her council tax bill.

The chairman of the bench at Bristol Magistrates Court, Jane Bramhall, sentenced Mrs Jones to three months in prison, suspended for one year, and Mr Jones to six weeks in prison, suspended for one year.

She ordered the couple to complete 150 hours unpaid work each and to repay the money for the housing benefits and council tax, as well as 1,263 in costs.

She said: "You committed these offences deliberately, you were motivated by greed."

The couple, of Gill Avenue on the Oldbury Court estate in Fishponds, Bristol, were found out only when the city council was tipped off after they appeared in June last year on Channel 4's reality show Wife Swap.

The show involves two women spending a fortnight living with each other's husband and family.

Mrs Jones previously admitted failing to notify the council that her partner had moved in with her, failing to tell the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that her partner was living with her, and also failing to tell the DWP that her husband had received 30,625 when his house in Yate was repossessed.

Mr Jones pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting his wife.

Ashley Clarke, prosecuting for Bristol City Council yesterday, said a fraud investigation began in June last year after the couple appeared on the TV programme.

She said: "Mrs Jones portrayed herself as living with her then-partner, Steven Jones.

"Bristol City Council and the DWP were both paying benefits on the basis that Kelly Jones lived alone with her child."

They were paid 1,000 to appear on the Channel 4 show, filmed in October 2008.

The court heard Mrs Jones began claiming benefits legally after she separated from Mr Jones but did not inform authorities when they were reunited and he moved in.

She later completed a form saying she still lived alone.

The couple now have two daughters together – one aged three and the other 11 months.

Instead of using the 30,000 from the repossession of the house to put matters right, they spent the money, the court heard.

Ruth Tiley, mitigating for Mrs Jones, said her client suffered from post-natal depression and was prescribed Prozac but did not take it.

She said: "She is quite horrified by what she has done. She has received hate mail and is taunted in the street."