A MOTHER-of-two cried as she admitting fraudulently claiming £14,000 in tax credits.

The case of cook Sharon Armstrong was delayed for hours because she needed medical assistance to cope with the stress of appearing before York Crown Court.

When she finally went into the dock, she admitted taking £14,000 from the taxpayers' purse over three years.

Chloe Fairley, prosecuting for HM Revenue and Customs, said Armstrong had claimed tax credits as a single mother of two, despite the fact that her partner, Barry Hooper, was living with her.

Armstrong, 41, of St Mary's View, Alne, near Easingwold, pleaded guilty to three charges of tax credit fraud.

She was given a nine-month prison sentence, suspended for two years.

"Yours is an offence of neglect and oversight, but a dishonest one," Recorder Timothy Roberts QC told her.

Miss Fairley said that Armstrong first applied for tax credits in February 2003.

She did not give her partner's financial and other details when she made annual declarations confirming her income and circumstances in a phone call on June 21, 2004, and forms in July 2005 and May 2006. But Mr Hooper had been living with her since 2000.

She later told tax officials she did not realise that she had to include him on the forms.

Her barrister, Laura Addy, said: "She feels as if she has been very stupid and naïve and is frankly embarrassed."

Armstrong was so ashamed of what she had done, she had not told her children, who were now adults, even though she was very close to them.

She had not included Mr Hooper in the form initially because he was not giving her any money towards household expenses, but as time passed, she realised she was doing wrong by leaving him out of the annual declarations.

She was a hard-working woman who lived a frugal life. She had married at the age of 18 and had two children shortly afterwards, but she then divorced and had been left to bring up the children alone.

Since July 2007, she had been repaying the money at £200 a month and would continue to do so.