A single mum-of-five has narrowly avoided jail after she continued to claim benefits – after scooping £75,000 on the lottery.
Rhona Black splurged her winnings from an online scratch card over the course of a year, buying new cars for herself and her partner and treating her children.
She cleared off major debts and even paid for a lavish wedding.
But the 35-year-old – who has largely claimed benefits since 2004 – failed to inform Aberdeen City Council and the Department of Work and Pensions (DoWP) about her windfall.
Between October 2010 and 2011, she fraudulently claimed a total of £5,400 in benefits.
Benefit claimers must declare any capital over a maximum of £16,000 as savings may affect the sum of cash they are entitled to.
Yesterday Black appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court to be sentenced having previously admitted committing the fraud.
Solicitor advocate Gail Goodfellow said Black had been “scared” to declare her winnings in case the authorities took the cash away from her.
She said her client had “struggled to make ends meet” and when she was handed the cash she wanted to use it to “give her children a little bit of luxury”.
Mrs Goodfellow told the court Black had since sold her car for £1,000 and had given the money back to the authorities.
She added she was also paying the state back at a rate of £7 a week.
The court heard the money still to be repaid now totals £2,014.35
Sheriff William Taylor had previously warned the benefit cheat that she was looking at a possible custodial sentence, however he said that given the efforts she had made to repay the authorities he would spare her jail.
Instead her ordered her to carry out 150 hours of unpaid work within the next year.
Speaking after court Black, of 9 Auchinyell Terrace, Aberdeen, said she was glad she was not sent to prison.
She said: “When I first won the money I was away to move house and thought the cash would come in handy.
“I paid off major debts and paid for a wedding. I was also taken advantage of by those who knew I had won the cash.
“I am glad , for my children’s sake, I did not get sent to prison.”