Benefit cheat and Oxfordshire county councillor Olive McIntosh-Stedman has been sentenced by a judge to do 50 hours unpaid community service and ordered to pay £5,000 costs.
McIntosh-Stedman, 65 who represents Cowley and Littlemore, was convicted of dishonestly claiming council tax benefit. She was immediately suspended from the party.
She was sentenced today at Oxford Crown Court.
The charges against McIntosh-Stedman related to a council tax benefit form, which the former nurse completed in December 2002, in which she failed to declare the income she received from a monthly NHS pension.
She also failed to disclose a savings account and the member allowance she received from County Hall.
Before the Oxford Crown Court trial, she quit the Oxford East Labour group to sit as an independent councillor. She is due to face the electorate again in 2009.
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