A JOB centre worker responsible for issuing crisis cheques falsely claimed almost £6,000 in benefits.

Single mother Linda Davies admitted four charges of falsely filling in application forms for working family tax credits, issued by the Inland Revenue.

The claims for the credits, amounting to £5,738.20, were made between July 2000 and January 2002, while she was working as an admin assistant at Blackburn Job Centre Plus, Cardwell Place.

The matter is now being investigated by her employers and the 42-year-old may lose her job.

Hyndburn magistrates heard that Davies had failed to declare savings of more than £3,000, the threshold for claiming the credits.

Clare Thomas, prosecuting, said Davies, of Buttermere Drive, Oswaldtwistle, was awarded £56.67 a week.

Davies, who moved from Wythenshawe, in Manchester, to Oswaldtwistle in October last year, had savings of more than £8,000 in two separate accounts, she said.

"Had she declared she had savings, no award would have been made," she said.

Peter King, defending, said £6,000 in one of the accounts had been lent to her by a friend to refurbish her house in Wythenshawe, so she could sell it and move.

"Those monies had been lent to her and she had not fully appreciated and accepted that those monies truly belonged to her," he said.

The other account contained money belonging to her, he said.

"These matters are of enormous regret to her. This is the first time she has ever been arrested. The price she pays predominantly is the loss of her good repute."

There was also a chance she could lose her job, he said.

Davies, who has a six-year-old son, was given a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered to repay the £5,738.20 overpayment, plus £250 costs. Chairman of the bench William Riley said: "This was a fraudulent claim over a long period of time. Your previous good record goes in your favour and we have given you credit for your guilty pleas."

A spokesman for the IR said: "The outcome of this case is satisfactory and shows the Inland Revenue is committed to uncovering fraud against the department.

"This includes new areas of responsibility such as the new tax credits.

"Anyone contemplating committing similar offences should expect to be sentenced and made to repay the money taken from honest taxpayers."

A spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions said all the circumstance of the case and Davies' duties would be taken into account before any decision on her future was made.