Archive - Thursday, 28 March 2002


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Fraud mum walks free

A BARRY mother-of-six who fiddled £11,000 in benefits walked free from court on Monday.

Sheryl Townsend-Ryan escaped being jailed because a judge decided sending her to prison would be "catastrophic" for her children.

The Gilbert Street resident was found guilty of illegally claiming income support for five years despite working as a slimming consultant.

Prosecutor Peter Murphy told the court Ms Townsend-Ryan received £11,707 of taxpayers money while earning £80 a week taking slimming classes.

Carol Anthony, defending, said the slimming class work started after she enrolled on a course to lose weight.

She said: "After going on the course she was encouraged to "spread the word" and became a self employed consultant.

"She must have known she was doing wrong but was turning a blind eye to it. But she didn't realise she was defrauding the state of that amount."

Townsend-Ryan, 32 , admitted two sample counts of dishonest representation and asked for a further 171 count to be taken into consideration.

Judge David Wynn Morgan told her taking that amount of money over such a long period would normally mean a jail term."But this would be catastrophic for your family," he said

Townsend-Ryan, who has six children aged between 21 months and nine years, was given a 12-month community rehabilitation order at the Cardiff Crown Court hearing.