The Children Would Be Better Off Learning Crime Doesn't Pay...

A benefits cheat spared jail despite falsely claiming almost £100,000 has been ordered to refund the taxpayer...

Well, good! 

...just £11 a month – meaning it would take her 686 years to pay it all back.

*sighs* 

We'll never recoup the full amount, and the State will expend yet more resources employing people to deal with her.

Claire Finney, 41, enjoyed five-star holidays as she pocketed extra child tax credits, universal credit, housing benefit and income support by falsely claiming she was a single parent, a court heard. Along with her four children and long-time partner Joseph Perry – who she falsely described in one claim as their grandfather – she enjoyed a string of stays at luxury resorts in Cyprus. Mr Perry was not accused of any wrongdoing.

Why not? Are we expected to believe he knew nothing about it? She was, after all, yet another habitual criminal: 

... despite having a previous benefit fraud conviction, she walked free from court with a suspended sentence after a judge said it would be her children who suffered if he jailed her.

It would probably be the making of them. With a mother like this, what possible chance do they have to grow up to be responsible, law-abiding adults?