A SERIAL benefit cheat fraudulently claimed £15,000, saying she lived alone despite her firefighter husband "staying three or four nights a week" at her home.
Southern Derbyshire Magistrates' Court heard how investigators also spotted a van advertising Yvonne Hudson's husband's gardening business using her home phone number.
The 46-year-old claimed that she and her husband had split in 2010 and she started claiming income support.
She also began to claim council tax assistance from South Derbyshire District Council, saying she received no income from the man she had married and had split from.
But a joint council and Department of Work and Pensions investigation revealed that her husband, who works as a retained firefighter for Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service, had registered his van to her Melbourne address.
Unemployed Hudson was interviewed and denied her husband was living at the address and instead was living with his family in Derby at two separate addresses.
But when investigators went to them both, there was no answer.
Hudson, of Coronation Close, pleaded guilty to two counts of failing to notify relevant authorities about a change of circumstance.
The court was told this was her second conviction for the same offence, having pleaded guilty to a similar charge in 2006.
Handing her a four-month prison sentence, suspended for 18 months, magistrate Philip Houckhman said: "This was a deliberate act of fraud from the onset.
"You have a previous conviction for the same offence.
"You knew exactly what you were doing.
"Your husband registered your home for his business and for working with the fire brigade with your knowledge."
Moira Bell, prosecuting, said that in total, between February 2010 and November last year, Hudson fraudulently claimed "around £15,000" in income support and council tax assistance.
She said: "The offence came to light when investigations revealed how a gardening van registered to Mrs Hudson's husband was registered at the address.
"He was also a retained firefighter for Derbyshire Fire and Rescue Service and as a condition of his contract employment had to live within a five-mile radius of the station where he worked.
"Mrs Hudson gave us two addresses where she said he was living with his family members in Derby but both were outside this radius and when investigators went to the addresses there was no answer.
A pre-sentence report, prepared by the probation service and read out in court, revealed how Hudson told them she had split from her husband but that he stayed "three or four nights a week" for the sake of their son.
Lauren Sharkey, defending Hudson, whom the court was told had a degenerative spine injury and was on crutches in court, said: "She describes the relationship with her husband as volatile
"He was not living there (at the address) but chose to stay three or four times a week.
"She knows what she was doing was wrong and expresses remorse for her actions.
"She is sorry, her behaviour was shameful."
