A supply teacher claimed more than £18,500 in illegal benefits while teaching in West Midlands schools.

Idah Mapako, aged 41, also got a student grant and student loan on top of wages from teaching, which reached £600 a week.

Mapako, of Rosedale Avenue, Smethwick, cost schools £16 an hour for her work but has admitted five counts of claiming income support, housing benefit and council tax benefit between September 2003 and July 2007, to which she was not entitled.

West Bromwich magistrates heard she studied at Wolverhampton University and completed a masters degree in a bid to be a scientist. The mother-of-one now works in a medical laboratory at Bedford Hospital.

Mr Hockham Singh Suthi, defending, said: “She genuinely didn’t know what she was doing was wrong, it was a misunderstanding, a complete mistake.”

Sentencing Mapako, presiding magistrate John Rock said they had decided to give her a second chance.

She will have to complete 100 hours of unpaid work and was given an 18 month supervision and community order. She also faces £200 in court costs.