A YORK woman jailed for a £28,000 benefits fraud is married to a bank manager sent to prison only weeks ago for stealing thousands of pounds from customers.

Shasta Bi, 37, cheated the taxpayer out of £28,000 in a six-year benefit fraud by repeatedly forging tenancy agreements.

Sadiq Ali, 29, used his position in charge of HSBC's Heslington branch to steal £9,958 from the accounts of customers.

The middle-class couple were both given six-month jail sentences following separate court hearings.

Both have borrowed to pay back all or most of the money they stole. York Magistrates Court heard that they are to divorce.

As reported in later editions of yesterday's Evening Press, Bi, of Little Meadows, Haxby, admitted 46 charges, including forgery, giving benefit officers false information, and making dishonest representations to obtain benefit.

The crimes began in December 1997, when Bi forged a tenancy agreement and claimed to be living on her own.

Jonathan Cripwell, prosecuting for City of York Council, told magistrates that, in fact, Bi and Ali had a joint tenancy and they were living together.

Over the next six years, she forged other tenancy agreements as the couple moved from house to house in the York area. At first they were joint tenants.

In 1999 Ali bought a house in Keswick Way, Huntington, to which they moved, and in April 2002 they moved to his house in Little Meadows.

For every move, Bi forged tenancy agreements claiming to be a lone tenant, and used them to claim housing and council tax benefit.

Her crimes did not end until a council check in August 2004 revealed the truth. By then she had netted £28,000 in benefits she was not entitled to, said Mr Cripwell.

For Bi, Andrew Craven said she had had difficulties from the moment she married and had not got the help and support she should have got from her husband. She had repaid £25,000 by borrowing from others.

Ali was jailed for six months in September after admitting one theft charge. York Crown Court heard that he manipulated closed bank accounts between February 2002 and May 2003 and bank investigators became suspicious in March 2003.

Ali had been released on prison licence before Bi appeared for sentence yesterday.

Updated: 10:37 Friday, December 10, 2004