A MOTHER-of-three who is behind bars for fraudulently claiming nearly £25,000 in housing benefit and income support has lost a bid to cut her sentence.

Juliet Shane Sandford, 29, of Spindle Close, York, was jailed for 12 months in March after pleading guilty to benefit fraud.

Lawyers on her behalf argued the sentence was too long in light of her guilty plea and her home situation where she cared for her three young children.

But Mr Justice Hughes, sitting with Mrs Justice Dobbs at London's Appeal Court, refused to cut it, dismissing arguments that the jail term was "manifestly excessive".

He said Sandford had fraudulently claimed £24,900 in benefits over two-and-a-half years from the end of 2000.

The claims were "false from their inception" as Sandford, although not working herself, was living with the father of her three children who was in full-time employment.

Rejecting the appeal, Mr Justice Hughes said: "We do not underestimate the effects of the sentence on her family life. But there are plenty of families whose financial circumstances are worse than this and who manage honestly.

"This sentence was squarely in the bracket available to the trial judge and it's impossible to say it was manifestly excessive. This appeal must be dismissed."

Before Sandford was sentenced in March at York Crown Court, sitting in Leeds, it was revealed that she had lied to local and national benefit officials.

She had claimed she was a single parent and had no other form of income in an effort to receive income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit she was not entitled to.

In reality, she was living in Foxwood with the father of her children who was in full-time employment.

She started applying for housing benefit and council tax benefit in August 2000 as a single parent, although the couple had been accepted as foster parents in March 2000.

They were still living together when, in December 2000, she also started to claim income support, again as a single parent.

Her crimes only ceased when a tip-off alerted benefit officials at City of York Council and the Department of Works and Pensions (DWP) to her crimes in June 2003.

Sandford pleaded guilty to 12 charges of benefit fraud and was jailed for a year.

Her barrister, Taryn Turner, pleaded for her to keep her liberty, arguing that her three young children would suffer, the family would have financial hardship and the money had gone on household expenses and their welfare, not on frivolous items.

But Judge Trevor Kent Jones said: "I cannot allow what is, in effect, a just about £25,000 fraud on the country to go unmarked by a prison sentence."

Updated: 08:34 Monday, June 27, 2005