A MOTHER of five who lied about earning hundreds of thousands of pounds from her escort agency so that she could evade paying tax and claim benefits has been jailed after a retrial.

Janine Adeleke, 45, claimed to be unemployed when she was in fact running her Bexhill-based escort business, Carltons of London.

Investigators found that Adeleke had stolen £212,000 in unpaid income tax, National Insurance contributions and tax credits payments by declaring that she had no income.

She also fraudulently claimed more than £37,000 in income support and other state benefits, and laundered £157,000 of illicit cash, all while sending her children to private schools and splashing out on beauty treatments, gym membership and foreign holidays.

The hearing was a retrial, after the Court of Appeal ruled in December 2016 against the previous conviction of September 2015. She was jailed for three years on Monday.

Tim Clarke, assistant director of HM Revenue and Customs, said: “Adeleke broke the law to fund a lavish lifestyle and privately educate her children. She defrauded vital public services and stole benefits designed to help struggling families.

“She pleaded poverty, but this was far from the truth.

“She didn’t declare her income because she didn’t want to pay any tax. But she did want to claim state benefits, which are meant to support people on low incomes, and she certainly wasn’t entitled to receive them.”

Investigators uncovered evidence of lavish spending with £103,000 spent on beauty treatments, leisure and holidays, and an additional £88,000 spent in high street stores.

They discovered that more than £1.2 million had passed through her bank accounts, enabling Adeleke to splash out at least £120,000 on private schools between November 2006 and January 2014, including a school which charges up to £30,000 a year.

As a further deception to hide her income, when Adeleke discovered she was being investigated, she laundered £157,000 through her elderly mother’s bank account.

Adeleke, of Watermill Lane, Bexhill, was found guilty of seven counts of fraud, including money laundering, cheating the public revenue, tax credits and benefit fraud at Canterbury Crown Court. Confiscation proceedings have started to reclaim the money.