Mother avoids jail sentence over lying on housing application
A mother-of-two narrowly avoided an immediate prison sentence after she admitted lying to get further up the housing waiting list.
Shannon Booker, 22, did not disclose she had two previous convictions when applying for a house for her family.
Yesterday, at Wolverhampton Crown Court, Judge Michael Challinor decided not to trigger a suspended sentence, which would have put her in jail.
Instead, the judge ruled Booker, of Queen Street in Tipton, must do 180 hours unpaid work. Booker has children aged four and three months.
He said: "Put simply you avoided the inevitable delay in the queue by lying about your previous convictions."
He added: "Your motivation was because you have nowhere to live and you wanted a home for yourself and children.
"It is for the sake of your children that I give you one more chance."
