Benefits cheat, 60, avoids jail despite fraudulently taking home £52,200 in tax cash

A 60-year-old benefits cheat won't see jail time despite taking home more than £50,000 in taxpayers' cash.Deirdre Conway, from Cookstown in County Tyrone, has been found guilty of benefit fraud totalling some £52,204.32.Dungannon Crown Court was told that she had overstated the severity of her disability to claim Personal Independent Payments (Pip) she was not entitled to.The court handed her a 12-month prison sentence, suspended for three years.A probe by Northern Ireland's Department for Communities brought the scale of the 60-year-old's fraud to light.Conway was additionally ordered to return all the tax cash back to the Department.The conviction comes amid Communities Minister Gordon Lyons' crackdown on welfare fraud across the...

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