Radio presenter spared jail over benefits fraud

A DJ who claimed more than £18,000 in benefits while working for the BBC's Asian Network has walked free from court.

Lubna Qazi, who had faced a jail term of up to three months, was given a conditional discharge after being told her case was exceptional because of her care for her severely disabled husband.

Birmingham Crown Court heard that Qazi, 53, began to claim carer's allowance after her husband suffered a stroke in 2002.

But she then failed to declare that she was receiving more than the permitted 95-per-week limit for almost seven years.

Appearing as Kanwal Qazi, she earned 24.47p per hour at the Asian Network, working approximately nine hours each weekend, the court heard.

Passing sentence yesterday, Recorder Collingwood Thompson QC said he was taking an exceptional course because of the "devoted" care and attention she had given her husband.

The court heard that Qazi's husband was left paralysed after suffering brain damage and would have had to live in a nursing home without her care.

Qazi, of Kings Heath in Birmingham, was ordered to pay 100 in costs and has agreed to repay 17,414.

She pleaded guilty to a single count of failing to notify the authorities of a change in her circumstances at an earlier hearing.