Single-Mother told to pay back money after £52k shopping spree says she's being punished 'for being beautiful'

According to a report by Daily Mail, a single-mother facing jail after being ordered to repay £52,000 in council money she used to go on a designer shopping spree says she is being treated unfairly because of her looks.

Michaela Hutchings, 23, used £51,821.34 accidentally transferred into her account by Lichfield Council to buy expensive designer shoes, handbags and sunglasses in a spending splurge last year.

After she was caught, a judge spared her jail on the condition she paid the money back by Christmas Eve, but now she is complaining that the punishment is unfair, and that she has been made an example of because she is attractive.

In an interview with The Sun, she said: 'I've done wrong but I'm only human, the same as everyone else. They're punishing me because of the way I look.

'If I wasn't much to look at and played the card of "Oh, I only get this much a month, I was in a bit of a sticky situation" I reckon I'd have got a slap on the wrist and just paid back a fiver a week.

'I pleaded guilty but the only person guilty is the person who put the money in my account. I don't think I should have been punished the way I was. It's just outrageous.'

Bungling Lichfield District Council, Staffs, transferred the money into Hutchings account by mistake in April last year instead of paying Bromford Housing Association.

Hutchings said she only discovered the money while withdrawing cash on a trip to buy milk, and when she quizzed her bank over the sum, they couldn't tell her where it had come from.

She maintains that she wouldn't have touched the money had it not been for her ex-boyfriend, who she says took her to Birmingham's Bull Ring Shopping Centre to spend the cash.

The pair went to Selfridges where, according to Hutchings, her boyfriend bought thousands of pounds worth of designer clothes, shoes, belts and sunglasses.

She claims that she initially spent nothing, but on the second day treated herself to a Gucci bag, a Louis Vuitton bag and belt and Dior sunglasses.

In just 48 hours, she hand spent £8,000 on shopping, and used a further £1,000 to pay off an outstanding train fine that had built up.

She also gave her mother £1,000, and had put a further £40,000 into savings on the advice of her bank, who were unaware of the council's mistake.

 

Meanwhile officials at Lichfield Council had realised their error, stopped a further £44,500 being transferred, and were desperately trying to trace her to explain the error.

Hutchings says she was out when two men from the council eventually arrived at her mother's house, but the next day they came back with riot police who surrounded the area.

She says officers with their Tasers drawn handcuffed her, threw her into the back of a riot van, and took her to a police station where she was charged with dishonestly retaining a wrongful credit, which carries up to ten years behind bars.

She pleaded guilty and was taken to Stafford Crown Court for sentencing, where Recorder Derek Desmond spared her prison provided she could repay £52, 465.21 - the initial sum, plus £643.87 interest.

Hutchings says she immediately repaid the £40,000 she had saved, plus £3,600 left in her bank account.

The council will auction off the items she bought, and then it is up to her to repay the rest.

She told The Sun she is putting aside £20 a week from working in her parents' stables, but is considering appealing the terms of her 'unfair' repayments.

She added: 'It's a bit outrageous, isn't it? My life has been turned upside down by all this. The person at Lichfield Council who did it shouldn't have a job.

'They have ruined a part of my life with the stress and abuse I've been through.'