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A professional fraud investigator has been warned she faces a “significant” jail term for helping her husband con the taxman out of more than £885,000.

Elizabeth Lewis, 38, denied being involved in the fraud with her husband, Mark Scott Lewis. He admitted seven charges relating to the fraud, while she denied four counts.

But after more than nine hours of deliberations, a jury at Cardiff Crown Court found her guilty by majority verdicts of all four allegations.

Judge Huw Davies warned mum-of-one Lewis to be prepared for a prison sentence. He said: “She must understand that she faces the prospect of an immediate custodial sentence of significant length.”

Thanking the jury for their deliberations during the week-long trial at Cardiff Crown Court, he told them: “This was a particularly demanding case. The subject matter was complex.”

Mark Lewis admitted defrauding HM Revenue and Customs through his charity, The Welsh Independent School of Climbing and Mountaineering, which was set up to help disadvantaged young people in the South Wales Valleys.

During the trial, his wife Elizabeth, a business studies graduate and a benefit fraud investigator with the Department of Work and Pensions, told the jurors she was busy with her job and with her own charity, which builds schools in Uganda, and knew nothing of what her husband was doing illegally.

She said she had separated from her childhood sweetheart since realising he was guilty of the allegations put to them following their arrest at the home they shared with their young son in Cymmer Road, Porth.

The court has heard how gift aid totalling £885,611 was obtained from HM Revenue and Customs by Mark Lewis claiming his charity had received donations of £3m at a time when prosecutors claim it was a dormant organisation.

The money, it is said, went into bank accounts in the couple’s names or some of 27 other companies he had registered with Companies House.

Judge Davies adjourned sentencing on both of them until November 1, for pre-sentence reports to be prepared.

They were granted bail and will be sentenced at Swansea Crown Court.