A Hereford businesswoman and wife of an airline pilot has been acquitted of defrauding Herefordshire Council of benefits money, writes HEATH ASTON.

Magistrates ordered the council to pay the defence costs of Eleanor Walters, 35, proprietor of Tiggy-Winkles Day Nursery at Burghill, after she was wrongly accused of making false statements in claiming housing benefit between August 1998 and July 1999.

At the time of the alleged offences she was a single mother with 11-year-old twins living at Mansel Lacy, outside Hereford.

Kevin O'Keefe, prosecuting, put it to Mrs Walters that she was 'cohabiting' with Mr Michael Walters, a pilot for British Regional Airlines, and that she was therefore not entitled to benefits.

Training

But Mrs Walters said the couple were 'boyfriend and girlfriend' at the time and Mr Walters was away in Wiltshire, Florida, Coventry and Manchester completing his training during this period and not contributing to the family pot. At this time she was using her previous surname of Mansell.

She told the court it wasn't until the arrival and then tragic loss of their 12-week-old son to cot death in June 1999 that they decided to become a family.

Vicar of Bromyard and former vicar of Breinton, Graham Sykes, a friend of the couple, told magistrates: "I didn't get the impression they were living together during the time of the Baptism. I remember Mike went off to make tea and I lost count of the times his head came round the door to ask where things were. It was my impression that he lived away."