The Cambridge News online yesterday reported that a doctor’s

letter sent to Cambridge Crown Court on behalf of 44-year-old Julie Miller-Prest, a convicted benefit fraudster, said she cannot leave Malta, where she is staying, for up to six weeks.

Miller-Prest has been told to repay almost £30,000 she dishonestly claimed in benefits, the report said. Judge Jonathan Haworth, who has repeatedly postponed sentencing Miller-Prest to enable her to disclose her assets and pay back the cash, this week issued an arrest warrant without bail.

“If she has any sense, on her return she will come to this court as her first stop. That is the only way she will be able to avoid being arrested and ending up in a police cell,” said the judge.

A previous sentencing hearing was put off after Miller-Prest was given an ultimatum to disclose her assets, including details of a property she owns in Haverhill, the report added.

This week, the court was told Miller-Prest had paid over £7,500 from her personal account to her solicitor and said the remaining cash she owes is in transit.

Miller-Prest admits 22 charges involving obtaining benefit by deception, attempted deception and making false representations to obtain benefit over nine years between 1992 and 2001.

At her original hearing, the court was told she had been working full-time at the Inland Revenue while making fraudulent claims for family tax credit and making false statements to obtain housing and council tax benefit.

In 1999 she deposited £30,000 in a savings account and subsequently bought a property at Bartlow Place, Haverhill, for £44,000.

Her cheating activities also involved failing to declare savings or ownership of the property.