By Staff Reporter

Last updated 11:55, Thursday, 03 July 2008

A woman claimed nearly £30,000 in benefits for being a single mother when she was living with her husband and going on exotic holidays with him, a court heard.

Karen Burns: Not guilty plea to seven charges of benefit fraud

Karen Jane Burns, 44, claimed income support, Jobseekers’ Allowance, and housing and council tax benefit while claiming to be living alone with her two children, a jury at Carlisle Crown Court was told.

Her alleged scam lasted from April 2004 to October 2007 – and she repeatedly signed forms saying she was a single mother even though she was sent three leaflets reminding her that she should tell the authorities if she was sharing her home with anyone else.

In that time she was not just living with her husband Leonard, but going on holiday with him to such places as Thailand, Malaysia and Kenya, prosecuting counsel Kim Whittlestone said.

Burns, of Ismay Close, Maryport, has pleaded not guilty to seven charges of benefit fraud totalling £29,599.

She claims that she was separated from her husband and he used her address only to collect his mail.

The holidays she spent with him, she told investigators, were all failed attempts at a reconciliation after their break-up.

Ms Whittlestone rejected such an explanation because, she said, there was “a wealth of evidence” to show that Burns’ husband was living with her in a “common household”.

When Department of Work and Pensions officials searched the house they found numerous documents – including passports, wage slips, tax bills and a membership card for the Ellenborough Social Club – which showed that Mr Burns lived with her, she said.

And the couple had even opened a joint bank account in April 2004 on the basis that they had lived together in the house as man and wife since April 1986, she said.

Ms Whittlestone said that when interviewed by a council official in October 2007, just after returning from Kenya with him, Burns insisted she was separated from her husband and that he was “last heard of in the Isle of Man.”

When interviewed again she admitted he had been living with her “for a few weeks”, but insisted it was only another attempt at a reconciliation, which she did not expect to be successful, the court heard.

The trial continues.