A BENEFIT cheat who fraudently claimed more than £13,000 while working for BT has been spared jail.

Lisa Webb, 25, admitted receiving £13,848 in income support which she was not entitled to.

Webb, who is pregnant with her third child, made the false claim over a four-year period from August 2003 to February last year, even though she was employed by BT as a senior telephone sales worker.

At Basildon Crown Court yesterday Judge John Lodge sentenced Webb to eight months in prison, suspended for 12 months, along with 12 months supervision.

He told her: “The message has got to go out that for benefit fraudsters, cheats who steal from the public purse, the top line has to be a sentence of imprisonment.

“Had you stood trial on this matter the sentence would have been in the region of 12 to 15 months imprisonment because people who take £13,000 from the public purse get that level of sentence.”

Judge Lodge said Webb, of St Anne’s Road, Canvey, had been spared an immediate custodial sentence because it had not started out as a dishonest claim, she had no previous convictions, pleaded guilty and she had not committed the offence to fund a lavish lifestyle.

Peter Clark, defence counsel for Webb, said his client accepted what she had done was wrong and had been repaying the money since March last year.

Mr Clark also said Webb made no attempt to hide what she had done when she was confronted about the matter by benefit inspectors.