Linda Boyd, of Cheviot Avenue, has been given a six-month community order and will have to stay at home between 7pm and 7am for claiming tax and housing benefits from Amber Valley Borough Council after falsely claiming she did not own a property.

The council was tipped off after an anonymous call to a benefit fraud hotline.

Boyd pleaded guilty to making a dishonest representation for the purposes of claiming housing and council tax benefit at Derby and Southern Derbyshire Magistrates' Court. She was sentenced yesterday.

The court heard Boyd, 60, had signed a joint agreement with an elderly friend from Leicester on a house on Cheviot Avenue.

Although Boyd did not pay any money towards the house she was part owner and her friend Robert Liburd, intended to pass ownership of the property entirely over to her when he died.

Miss Boyd claimed £6267.90 in housing benefits and £76.99 in council tax benefits over a period of more than two years.