A JUDGE admitted it will take "forever and a day" for a Gwent woman to pay back £72,000 in benefits she fraudulently claimed.

Janet Reynolds, 55, of Monnow Court, Thornhill, Cwmbran, didn't tell Torfaen council she had got married and her husband had moved in 13 years ago.

On October 7 this year, Reynolds pleaded guilty to receiving £72,178.82 in housing benefit, council tax benefit, income support and Jobseeker's Allowance between August 2000 and April 2013 to which she was not entitled, by not notifying the council of her change of circumstance.

At Newport Crown Court, David Webster, prosecuting, said the mum of three told Torfaen council in 2008 that her daughter had left home but did not mention she lived with husband Philip Chivell who was working.

The council called the defendant for interview in February, when she admitted she had married Mr Chivell but said he had left home on a number of occasions.

The interview was suspended so that the Department for Work and Pensions could be alerted.

When the interview resumed in April she said: "I was on income support because I was divorced. I met Mr Chivell and we got married and we couldn't afford to come off it because at the time we had split up a few times. I didn't know he had a loan for £10,000."

Mr Webster said Reynolds would not have been entitled to Jobseeker's Allowance or income support, which came to almost £30,000 of the total she should not have claimed.

Laurence Jones, mitigating, said: "She has come to realise that this is a very serious matter. She said, 'it's a weight off my shoulders, I know it's wrong, it's just devastating'.

"This is not a woman who has not done a day's work in her life. This is a tidy, proud Valleys woman who finds herself in this awful situation."

Reynolds, who has worked as a cleaner for the last four years, has been paying back the money at a rate of £15 per week and is looking for a second job in order to pay back more, said Mr Jones.

Judge Mr Recorder Geraint Walters described the figure of £72,000 as "astonishing".

There was no evidence of "high living" in Reynold's lifestyle, said Judge Walters, and his decision not to send Reynolds to jail immediately was "by a whisker".

Reynolds was sentenced to six months imprisonment, concurrent for each offence, suspended for two years.

She will be supervised for 12 months and must complete 200 hours unpaid work, as well as being subject to an electronic curfew from 7pm to 7am for four months.

"If you are daft enough to commit another offence you will be brought back and sent to prison," said the judge. "She has no means to pay a contribution towards costs. It will take her forever and a day to pay back what she's taken from the state already."