A COUPLE who swindled £10,000 in benefits by claiming they did not live together were caught out after appearing on the TV show Wife Swap.

A court heard yesterday that for nearly 18 months Kelly Jones claimed she was a single parent with

no income. She also said she was living alone with her child, when in fact her partner Steven Jones, who works as a bus driver for First, was living with her.

During that time the 23-year-old mother, who married Mr Jones in April this year, was overpaid £4,976 in housing benefits, £3,614 in income support and received an £1,171 discount on her council tax bill.

The couple's fraud was only discovered when the city council was tipped off after they appeared in June last year on the reality TV show, in which two women spend a fortnight living with each other's husband and family. They could now face a jail sentence.

At Bristol Magistrates' Court yesterday Jones admitted failing to notify the council that her partner had moved in with her, declaring on her benefit application that she lived alone, failing to tell the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) that her partner was living with her, and also failing to tell the DWP that her husband had received £30,625 when his house in Yate was repossessed.

Her husband, 40, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting his wife.

The couple, who live in Gill Avenue on the Oldbury Court estate in Fishponds, now have two daughters together – one aged three and the other 11 months.

They were paid £1,000 to appear on the Channel 4 show, which was filmed in October 2008.

Jones, whose maiden name was Moyston, also gave an interview to a magazine following the programme after she was criticised for feeding her daughter junk food. The episode prompted dozens of complaints to Ofcom.

In the magazine article, she described herself as a "housewife" to Steven Jones.

Lynne Harvey, prosecuting, told the court that the couple had been living together since July 2008 in a flat in Stapleton Road after the repossession of Steven Jones's home.

When council officers interviewed them starting in August 2009, they fully admitted what they had done.

Miss Harvey said: "Mrs Jones said she had not declared him at the address because his wages were too low to pay their rent and live. She panicked at the thought of losing their home.

"She said she knew once the TV programme was aired she would be caught."

Ruth Tiley, defending Jones, described her client as a "quite naive and gullible young woman".

She told the court that Jones had suffered with post-natal depression.

The pair were released on bail for pre-sentence reports to be completed, but the chairman of the magistrates told them he was not ruling out a prison sentence.