A BENEFIT fraudster has been spared a jail term despite defrauding Bromley Council of £23,500.

Tamba Ngegba, formerly of Cattistock Road, Mottingham, was given a nine-month jail term, suspended for two years, after defrauding the council of housing benefits from November 2003 to July last year.

Sentencing him on October 11 at Croydon Crown Court, Judge Stow said the fraud warranted a custodial sentence but took his guilty plea and a medical condition, which prevents Ngegba from working, into account.

This prosecution brings the number of fraudsters prosecuted to 74 since Bromley Council began its partnership with Greenwich Council's corporate anti-fraud team in April 2002.

Council leader Councillor Stephen Carr said: "Bromley's determination to prosecute fraudsters together with, we hope, tougher sentences imposed by the courts, may act as a deterrent against fraud."

The council is in the process of recovering the housing benefit overpayment.