NATIONAL bingo winner Donna Biddle collected £108,000 - and still continued to claim income support from the DSS.

The 20 year-old single mother of boys aged three and a half and eight months, of Pinvin Caravan Site, Pershore, formerly of Rynal Street, Evesham, still had not handed back the £2,299 she had been overpaid, magistrates at Evesham were told last Thursday.

Biddle pleaded guilty to making a false representation to obtain benefit on February 29 and asked for 31 similar offences to be considered.

She was fined £1,500, with £200 costs, and ordered to repay the £2,299. Jim Rogers, prosecuting for the DSS, said Biddle was claiming income support on the basis of being a lone unemployed parent without capital.

He said: "On May 23 she won the national game prize at Gala Bingo in Worcester and a £108,852 cheque was paid to her on June 4.

"She failed to tell the Benefits Agency about the winnings and carried on claiming benefit for a nine month period."

He explained anyone with savings of over £8,000 was disqualified from obtaining benefits.

Mr Rogers said when interviewed Biddle said the money had been set aside for her children and she couldn't actually touch it, but she accepted she had some of the money in an account.

Richard Wilkes, for Biddle, said: "Quite a lot of the money went to those who were at the bingo with her, and she has also given money to family and friends.

"Another £30,000 was put into a frozen account because she realised that although the winnings was a large amount of money, it could quickly disappear."

He said Biddle was unable to read, was not well educated and got nervous with people in authority.

"She took the view she was still a lone parent, still unemployed and felt her circumstances had not changed," Mr Wilkes said. "She fully accepts in hindsight she should have declared the money, and the fact she couldn't touch it did not mean that she had not got it."

Biddle, he said, was now living in a caravan, paying £45 a week rent, and was earning £159 a week at an Evesham factory.

Mr Wilkes said: "Completely out of the blue she came by this very large amount of money which she has found extremely hard to deal with.

"She didn't deliberately set out to defraud the agency but now agrees she should have sorted things out a different way."