A FORMER Vale of Evesham woman admitted a £7,000 insurance fraud at the town court last Thursday.

Over a three-year period, Margaret Keeler, formerly Aickman, collected £7,421 from the Army pension fund by not telling the Ministry of Defence that she had remarried.

Keeler, aged 53, now living at Solihull Road, Birmingham, admitted six offences of obtaining amounts of £245.53 by deception between October 1996 and March 199, and asked for 24 similar offences between the same dates to be considered.

Magistrates decided the matters were so serious that they required a pre-sentence report and adjourned the case until July 19. Mark Soper, prosecuting, said Keeler applied for and was granted a pension when her husband died in 1995.

However, when she remarried in September 1996 she did not tell the pensions department and the only information they had from her was in 1998 when she notified them of a change of banking arrangements.

"She was interviewed when the pensions department was given information that she had remarried and she offered to repay the overpayment at the rate of £100 a month, which was accepted, but she only handed back a total of £125," he said.

Chris Hilton, solicitor for Keeler, said there were "significant mitigating circumstances" relating to domestic matters and her medical condition, and he asked the magistrates to order the pre-sentence report.