A hotel owner who turned Queen's evidence against York housing benefits fraudster Geoffrey Laverack now knows he can keep his freedom after months of facing a jail sentence.

Charles Ian Stuart, 50, of Bishopthorpe Road, York, pleaded guilty to six charges of false accounting which enabled him to defraud the tax man of £5,000 over three years.

The judge said tax fraud was serious because it was "swindling the public". But after hearing how Stuart had apparently repaid the tax man, given police "many pages" of evidence against Laverack and would have been a prosecution witness in Laverack's trial, the judge sentenced him to 240 hours' community service.

Stuart wiped away tears of relief in the dock at York Crown Court.

"You have escaped prison by the skin of your teeth," the judge told him. Earlier he had warned that if in reality the money had not been repaid the sentence "would be reviewed".

Rodney Jameson, prosecuting, said Stuart had used people's names and National Insurance numbers to make false claims that he was paying them wages as employees at York Youth Hotel.

Laverack used the same names in his housing benefit fraud, but Stuart's claims that he had not realised this "may be true", said the barrister.

For Stuart, Simon Hickey said: "He is not the main character in this play."

Laverack, 52, of Dudley Mews, Dudley Street, The Groves, must wait until the New Year to learn his fate.

He pleaded guilty last month to perverting the course of justice and seven deception charges which the prosecution say amount to tens of thousands of pounds of housing benefit fraud.

He was to have been sentenced with Stuart, but his barrister David De-Jehan was not at York Crown Court.

Stand-in barrister Fiona Dix-Dyer said he was appearing in a civil case in Sheffield and the case was too complex for her to handle.

Explaining Mr De-Jehan's absence, she said the sentencing date had been put back and then moved forward again. But court staff told the judge the date had been set two weeks earlier and never changed, though Laverack's solicitors had asked for it to be delayed so they could get an accountant's report ready.

Paul Mark Thirlway, 34, of Eldon Terrace, The Groves, has been formally acquitted of perverting the course of justice by removing stamps and documents from Laverack's office on August 5, 1998, the day police searched the premises and arrested the landlord. He had denied the charge.