TWO married former councillors who lied about their extensive property holdings and savings have each been jailed for benefit fraud.

Former Castle Point councillors Alan and Kate Meager, of Jotmans Lane, Benfleet, were locked up for 28 days each after earlier pleading guilty to fraudulently claiming £2,372 of council tax benefit over four-and-a-half years.

At the hearing at Chelmsford Magistrates' Court, it was revealed there were further claims totalling £1,023.

Investigations by the council found the couple owned a property in Florida and two properties in London Road, Westcliff - a rented flat and business premises - which they did not declare. Sarah Otte, prosecuting, said Mr and Mrs Meager had also not declared Hathaways catering company, for which they had a joint income of £21,400.

Mrs Meager, 55, pleaded guilty to five counts of benefit fraud by not disclosing being in receipt of working tax credit or child tax credit.

Mr Meager, 50, admitted one offence of making a false statement by failing to declare he was in receipt of working tax credit and child tax credit, and that he had a bank account.

They did not declare a bank account with £49,989 in it, nor their roles as director and secretary of Huff n Puff, a company they set up in 1997.

The Department for Work and Pensions alerted the council to the fraud when a claim for income support by Mr Meager was refused due to excess income.

Susanne Alavi, defending, said: "This was not an intentional act by either party. They did not set out this elaborate plot."

Ms Alavi told the court the couple's home had been targeted with graffiti and criminal damage, and their company, Huff n Puff, had lost contracts since the fraud was made public.

She said Hathaways, as a subsidary of Huff n Puff, had been operating at a loss and they had not taken an income from it.

An unimpressed District Judge David Cooper said the Meagers were "swindling their own council".

He said: "It's imposssible to accept that this was some temporary oversight.

"You both have shown a cynical and really breathtaking dishonesty and greed over many years. This is aggravated by the fact you were both councillors and I think the public will be affronted if an immediate custodial sentence was not passed."

All the money has been repaid to the council, but the couple must now pay court costs of £2,661 each or serve an extra two weeks in prison.

Mr and Mrs Meager, who resigned as Tory St Mary's ward councillors in November last year, hung their heads as they were handcuffed and led down to the cells.

After the sentencing, council leader Pam Challis said: "Castle Point takes all reports of benefit fraud seriously, no matter who it relates to."