A MUM-OF-FOUR who cheated taxpayers out of £46,000 in benefits and blew it on drink and drugs has been jailed for nine months.

Lisa Jackson, 33, of Hatherley Road, Gloucester, was sent down despite pleading for freedom to be with her dying mother.

For four years, Jackson conned Gloucester City Council and the Department of Work and Pensions out of the benefits by claiming she was a single mother with no income.

The truth was that she was living with and being supported by partner Nicholas Scott, who was earning up to £24,000 a year, Gloucester Crown Court heard.

Jackson pleaded guilty to 10 charges of falsely obtaining income support, council tax and housing benefit totalling £45,923.

When she was interviewed in January last year she told investigators: "I feel like I took the p**s out of you all – you and the taxpayers who were paying for me and my kids and my drug habit and for my kids to eat."

Judge William Hart said he had to bear in mind she had previous convictions for dishonesty between 2001 and 2003 when she had a suspended jail term.

He said: "It was a prolonged, deliberate and persistent fraud. You did it essentially to fund a drink and drug habit you had."

Prosecutor Kim Neil told the court Jackson had first claimed benefits in February 2004 and regularly renewed her claims over the next four-and-a-half years.

She moved house five times in that period – twice into temporary accommodation after flooding of her home in Sudmeadow Road, Gloucester – and each time she repeated her lies to get benefits.

In September 2008, she said, Jackson came under investigation after she and her partner went into the council offices together.

At that time Mr Scott had lost his job with Interlink Express so no longer had the income that was supporting the family and he, too, needed benefits.

She made a statement to officers in September 2008 saying Mr Scott had just moved in with her.

She said he had been out of the area for eight years and his parents had been financially supporting him.

Ms Neil said investigators uncovered evidence that Mr Scott and Jackson had made joint applications for credit cards from HBOS in 2006 saying they lived together.

In October 2007 he applied for a Visa card giving the same address as Jackson and he said he had been working for the last three years and earning £24,000 a year.

Steve Young, defending, asked the court to be merciful for the sake of Jackson's children and her dying mother.