Benefits 'fraudster' admits snorkelling in Maldives

Linda Hoey told Stafford Crown Court that the water took the weight off her painful back and legs and added: "The lagoon was about three feet deep and I had a waist buoyancy aid."

The 58-year-old twice married mother of four claimed to have been towed around by her husband Mick after discomfort forced her to remove her flippers.

The defendant was also photographed lying in a hammock with a knee bent and arm above her head on the same 2013 holiday, the jury was told.

Hoey is accused of exaggerating the effects of arthritis and other complaints it is accepted she suffers from. She insists they got progressively worse after she first made a claim for disability living allowance in 1999

The defendant explained she joined a gym after medical consultants advised taking exercise and, with assistance from her daughter, went swimming to keep supple and her joints moving.

Hoey confirmed she had been photographed on her knees altering her daughter's wedding dress but maintained: "I was helped up and down and was in extreme pain afterwards."

Another picture found at her home showed her at a pool table with a cue in her hand. Mr Anthony Cartin, prosecuting, said during cross examination: "This is an action shot . You are bent over the table." She said she was posing not playing and continued: "I am able to bend a little, as in a stoop."

She denied playing badminton and said she made a single, rolling one hour-a-week court booking for her family and sometimes went to watch them just like she occasionally went to football matches with her husband.

Hoey said former colleagues at Partsworld lied when telling the court she carried trays of hot drinks up the spiral staircase and arrived with bags of shopping at their offices in Orbital Way, Cannock.

She said relations at the firm, for whom she worked for 17 years, 'soured' when she took three months off for surgery in 2014 and an 'employment' case brought by her had been settled.

Mr Cartin observed: "You have some health issues but you exaggerated the impact on your daily life because you know what you have to say to get disability living allowance."

She declared: "I have not been dishonest. My mobility has got worse. I cannot walk without severe discomfort but perhaps I could have explained things a lot better on the forms I filled in.

It is claimed she illegally received benefits totalling £65,244 and £15,690 worth of free travel on the M6 toll.

Hoey from Talland Avenue, Armington, Tamworth denies fraudulently misrepresenting her benefit claim between 2001 and 2015 and misusing an exemption pass for the M6 Toll Road between 2004 and 2015. The case continues.