A MOTHER of two said to have netted almost £50,000 in a six-year benefits fraud has been jailed for nine months.

And today the Department for Work and Pensions urged the public to "shop," anybody they suspected of coining it in at the expense of others.

Dinner lady Julie Thomson, 34, claimed income support and child benefit as a single parent, but didn't own up to the fact she later married, although the relationship was on and off and she had moved to Gibraltar.

She was also working and had rented out her home in Gillies Street, Accrington, Burnley Crown Court heard.

Thomson, said to have gone abroad for the sake of her sick daughter and to have put the child's health first, was told by Recorder Andrew McLoughlin she got at least £33,000 she was not entitled to. He added only custody could be justified.

The court had been told the defendant was brought to book after an anonymous tip-off.

Thomson, a trained chef, had admitted two counts of false accounting and two of dishonestly retaining a wrongful credit. She asked for 435 offences to be considered.

David McLachlan, prosecuting for the Department for Work and Pensions, formerly the DSS, said the defendant had claimed income support since February ,1995, as a single mother with two dependant children.

She did not tell the department of various changes and later confirmed she still lived at Gillies Street and was single.

Suspicions arose in November 2001 when a call was made to the benefits hotline claiming Thomson was married, had left the country and was living with her husband.

Inquiries revealed she had wed in October, 1995, and that she was later working at her son's school in Gibraltar.

Her benefits were finally stopped in January this year after earlier being suspended and Thomson was interviewed.

She admitted she knew she had been dishonest, but said she had got used to the money and it "just went on and on."

Mr McLachlan said the defendant's claim for benefits were not fraudulent at the beginning and she was of previous good character.

The total amount of money obtained was just over £46,500 and no repayments had been made.

Mark Stuart, defending, urged the court not to deprive Thomson of her liberty. Thomson had been remanded in custody and had served the equivalent of a four-month sentence.

She had two children by her husband before they married but the relationship began to disintegrate.

The defendant's daughter, Gemma, was ill from birth and although Thomson and her husband effectively had no relationship after the child's birth, they kept in contact because Gemma was so poorly.