'Ludicrous' Judge blasts soft sentences as benefits cheat is given 67 YEARS to repay £40k #CarryGobySeanKellz #FutureGroupNG via @i_amreginaldjr

A MOTHER of two who boasted it was "easy" to steal £40,000 in state handouts has escaped with a few weeks in jail - and told to pay back the money at just ten pounds a week.

The court heard Louise Coulter said benefit fraud was the 'easy option'[CAVENDISH]

As Louise Coulter, 38, was told she may only have to serve a quarter of her prison stretch, a frustrated judge condemned her own sentencing powers for benefits cheats as "ludicrously low."
Coulter, from Burnley, Lancs, had claimed a string of handouts at taxpayers's expense to fund a luxury lifestyle by falsely claiming her trucker partner had left her, when he was in fact still living with her and was working.
She carried on the deception for four and a half years, and when she was caught in a surveillance operation claimed that welfare fraud was the "easy option."
She was hauled into court but the most severe sentence she could be given for her offending under government guidelines was just 20 weeks in prison.
It means she will be released on good behaviour after serving ten weeks, but she could be freed as early as five weeks time with an electronic tag.
Coulter, who has two children aged 13 and eight, will be able to pay back the £38,280.45 she was overpaid at the rate of only £10.95 a week - and it will come out of her benefits.
Judge Beverley Lunt told Coulter it was unlikely the stolen money would be recovered and the payback scheme represented "the taxpayer repaying the taxpayer."
If Coulter repays the amount in full, it will take more than 67 years.
At Burnley Crown Court, the judge added: "It may be the guideline sentences set down by the Sentencing Council, which judges must follow, are so ludicrously low that everyone thinks the sentences will automatically be suspended which clearly is not acting as a deterrent and that is a wrong assumption."

Earlier Julian Goode, prosecuting, said Coulter had legitimately claimed income support, housing and council tax benefits in 2003.
She made a further claim for the three benefits in 2008, on the basis that Wilcox had left the household on November 13 and she had separated from him.
Coulter claimed income support from November 2008 until November 2012 and housing and council tax benefits from November 2008 until July 2013.
She signed a form, declaring nobody else lived at the property and she had no other income other than child tax credits and child benefits. From November 2012 until July 2013, she claimed jobseekers' allowance.
But Mr Goode said surveillance was carried out on Coulter's home which showed Mr Wilcox going to and from the address.
A Department for Work and Pensions investigation uncovered further proof that he lived at the home.
Coulter was arrested in July 2013, and later admitted three counts of dishonestly failing to notify a change in circumstances.
In mitigation Fraser Hunter, defending Coulter, said she was now the sole carer of two children after she split up with Wilcox. She was currently studying IT at college.
Mr Hunter insisted the scam was not a fraud from the outset and added: "There is remorse. There is regret. Whilst she was the sole claimant, I don't believe this was a case where she was acting alone."
Mr Hunter claimed Wilcox was "highly influential" in her making the false claim and said: "She faced a large amount of domestic issues.
"Her partner was involved in some sort of criminal activity during the relationship and one of the reasons investigating officers knew about that address was because he had given that address to police officers.
"He has now left her alone to face these proceedings and left her alone with the children. He is nowhere to be found."