A mum who used her disabled son’s benefits payments to fund her holidays and meals out has been spared jail.

Susan Louth even stopped paying the rent for his independent living meaning he could have lost his home because of her spending.

But after hearing her autistic child would suffer if he knew his mother had been jailed a judge imposed a suspended sentence.

Tessa Hingston, prosecuting, told Swindon Crown Court the 52-year-old had control over the finances of her son, who has Asperger’s and moderate learning difficulties.

Although his £376 a fortnight Employment and Support Allowance was paid into his account his weekly Personal Independent Payments of £105 went into his mum’s.

Miss Hingston said he shares with another man in a supported accommodation home in Chippenham where care staff are paid to go in and help.

In January last year social services were alerted to substantial rent arrears to care providers Dimensions.

She said Louth fobbed them off with excuses and made ‘small, sporadic’ payments towards her son’s debt.

An investigation was launched because of the risk to his welfare and it was found that she had been using his money for day to day living and to pay off her credit cards.

But she had also bought plane tickets to Budapest for her and her unsuspecting husband, as well as Eurotunnel: though that payment was later cancelled.

She also used her son’s money for numerous meals out and to make payments for his sister’s school dinners.

When she was questioned the mum told police that she had been hit by a surprise tax bill in 2017 and accepted abusing the position of trust.

Louth, of Bakers Field, Lyneham, pleaded guilty to three counts of fraud totalling just over £6,750.

Tony Bignall, defending, said her husband had been away a lot when he was in the RAF and still travelled with his new job.

During that time she had managed the family finances, he said, but when she got the tax bill things went wrong and she now feels humiliated.

He said he had convinced herself that she would be able to pay her son back and has now started to do so, though she has not told him what she did.

She was handed a 20-month jail term suspended for two years with a community order, 200 hours unpaid work and told to pay £4,000 compensation.