A mother of one with a history of dishonesty who pocketed £18,500 after using a fake Wolverhampton University letter to open a student bank account has been spared jail after paying back the bulk of the stolen money.

Rajinder Sangha paid supposedly valid cheques into the Barclays account and then withdrew cash from it before the bank realised that they were bogus. The 36-year-old trickster carried out the deceit at branches of the bank across the region and in Edgeware, Middlesex.

Branches at  Birmingham, Kingswinford, Sutton Coldfield, Bridgnorth, Wolverhampton, Shrewsbury and Stafford were involved, a judge heard.

Sangha opened the account in 2009 and fraudulently withdrew cash from it on 12 different occasions between June and November of that year before the con was spotted by bank staff, prosecutor Mrs Sati Ruck told Wolverhampton Crown Court yesterday.

Mr Ekwall Tiwana, defending, said: “This was not a very sophisticated crime and she was bound to be caught.

“The money was not used for luxurious items. It went on basic household expenditure because her husband was not getting much work.

“She has now raised £17,500 from relatives towards it which will settle most of the debt with the bank and she will have to repay them. This will leave her in considerable straits.”

Sangha from David Peacock Close, Tipton, who pleaded guilty to fraud by false representation, had several previous convictions for similar offences.

In 1999 she got a loan by using the details of her sister without her knowledge and four years later was jailed for 12 months after using forged documents to obtain a loan.

She was given a one-year jail sentence suspended under supervision for two years and ordered to do 120 hours unpaid work by Judge Amjad Nawaz who told her:

“You are not buying your way out of prison but the fact that the money is being repaid is a factor I can take into consideration.”