A BENEFITS cheat who was given a council flat after failing to reveal she owned a £145,000 house has been jailed for eight months.

Rita Limbani said she could not afford to buy or rent a home when she threw herself on the mercy of Basildon Council and received the flat in King Edward Mead, Laindon.

But the 35-year-old failed to reveal she owned a two-bedroom house in Brooklands Park, Laindon, and was renting it out.

Basildon Magistrates’ Court heard Limbani charged her tenants top rates, which she used to pay her mortgage, while she paid a much cheaper rent on her council home. She continued the scam for more than a year, between October 2010 and December 2011, before being rumbled by council investigators.

Limbani denied three charges of fraud, failing to disclose information and false representation.

But magistrates dismissed her claims and imposed a jail sentence, describing her offences as “multiple, pre-planned and sophisticated.” The prosecution was the first one dealing with housing fraud to be carried out by the council.

Following sentencing, Phil Turner, the Tory deputy leader and councillor for housing, said: “This custodial sentence is a first for the council in our fight against housing fraud.

“It will not be the last if unscrupulous people continue to try to pull the wool over our eyes.’’ He added: “I have great admiration for our magistrates, who have a difficult task in sentencing such cases.

“However, they recognised the repeated, pre-planned and sophisticated nature of this crime and imposed a fitting sentence to reflect it.”