A MOTHER of three was jailed for four months yesterday for defrauding the Department of Work and Pensions of more than £25,000 over three years.

Bakery worker Catherine Bush, 32, claimed that she was a lone parent but throughout the period the father of her children was living with her and earning £25,000 a year, prosecutor Liz Pearson told Cardiff crown court.

Bush, who has no previous convictions of Sycamore Avenue, Newport, admitted eight charges of obtaining money from the department by false representation.

Judge Roderick Denyer told her: "I accept it may well be that in the early part of this deception the man with whom you lived was not providing properly for you.

"But by April 2003 he had a good job but you continued for a further year fraudulently claiming benefit.

"Prison will be hard on you, the children and him but I'm afraid there is a public interest in public monies not being wrongly obtained. It has to be a prison sentence."

Ms Pearson said Bush claimed to be a lone parent but Shane Pink was living at her address and in 2003 renewed his job and was earning £25,000 a year.

In July last year the authorities interviewed Bush who said they had got together only two months before and Mr Pink had never lived with her but she later accepted that he had been residing with the family.

"Had she declared this she would not have been entitled to any benefit at all," said Ms Pearson.

She said the over-payment was for income support, housing benefit and council tax.

Her barrister, Stephen Thomas, said: "She was struggling to bring up the children. The relationship with Mr Pink was on and off and he would drink, take drugs and disappear from time to time.

"He was entirely unreliable, providing little money. Foolishly she decided on this dishonest course. The money was not spent on herself but on clothes and meals.

"She is deeply sorry, deeply ashamed and frightened." Mr Pink, he said, had changed and had a different attitude towards the family and has said: "I wish that it was me in the dock."