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A mum who forced her children to have unnecessary surgery to swindle £375,000 in benefits has been jailed .

Probes have now been launched by the General Medical Council and local council to investigate how the 49-year-old tricked doctors into operating on her healthy children.

The mum hoodwinked medics into believing her children were suffering from serious health conditions for more than a decade.

Her lies led to her young son and daughter having painful treatments, including having gastronomy tubes fitted to their stomachs.

Her son had an irreversible operation to reduce his stomach capacity by 20 per cent and he was kept in nappies until he was nearly eight.

The mum, from Croydon, south London, “lied at every opportunity” by tearfully telling medics her children suffered from autism, asthma, urology and gastric conditions.

She made her son take steroids for asthma despite showing no signs of wheezing at school, Croydon crown court heard today.

A paediatrician who raised the alarm over the two children undergoing severe treatment for non-existent conditions was “rebuffed” by experts three years before the mum was finally arrested in 2013, the court was told.

Now-retired Dr Susanna Hart wrote to all of the specialists at Croydon University Hospital raising doubts - but received only one reply.

Judge Elizabeth Smaller said: “Dr Hart - viewing herself as merely a humble general paediatrician who deferred to those specialists - felt unsupported in 2010 and unable to bring about any intervention in this family.

“It is a matter of regret that such qualified and experienced medical professionals at world renowned hospitals did not maintain better channels of communication.”

The mum also claimed she was a single parent when she lived with the children’s father to claim income support.

The heavily-tanned mum, who cannot be named for legal reasons, broke down in tears as she was jailed for seven-and-a-half years today.

Andrew Evans, prosecuting, said the case was one of the largest benefits overpayments attributable to a single claimant ever recorded.

(Image: Google Maps)

The mum made sure her daughter was fed through a tube at school twice a day for seven years in a humiliating and disruptive affair, despite her eating regularly at home.

Judge Smaller said: “She missed out on ordinary life and being an ordinary child.”

The mum once took her son to the doctors dressed all in yellow as he clutched a yellow balloon, telling them he was showing obsessive behaviour linked to autism.

She even accused the children of being liars when they failed to keep up with her ruse.

Judge Smaller said: “They believed you because you were extremely plausible in your presentation, often anxious and tearful in their clinics.”

The children are now being fostered.

Their mum was found guilty of four counts of child cruelty, seven counts of making a false representation, two counts of obtaining money by false representation and two counts of fraud by false representation at a trial last month.

Stephen Moses QC, defending, said the mum suffered from depression, anxiety issues and personality disorders.

She was wrongly paid £87,424.25 in Disability Living Allowance between October 2003 and February 2014.

And despite living with her partner who made up to £38,00 a year she falsely claimed Income Support, bringing the total fraud up to £375,198.02.

Malcolm McHaffie, Deputy Chief Crown Prosecutor for CPS London, said: “That a mother should go to such lengths of child cruelty, spanning at least 10 years, to support the false and exaggerated benefits claims that she made is beyond comprehension.”

The Croydon Safeguarding Children Board has commissioned a serious case review due to be published by early December.

The General Medical Council is also investigating the case, the court heard.