Free woman: Kay Hooper was handed a suspended sentence and a six month electronically monitored curfew last week for the £55,000 cruise fraud, but can now go on her holiday to Mexico with her mum

A bogus travel agent who conned her way on to eight free cruises has had her electronic tag removed after just a week so she can go on a three week holiday to Mexico.

Kay Hooper, 58, from Devon, was handed a suspended sentence and a six month electronically monitored curfew last week for the £55,000 fraud.

But she returned to court days later to ask for it to be lifted and a judge agreed after hearing the Mexico holiday had been booked and paid for by her frail 87-year-old mother who did not know of her daughter's fraud at the time.

Hooper's mother is too unwell to travel without her support and would have had to abandon the trip of the judge did not agree to lift the curfew.

Recorder Mr Timothy Rose said the request was 'beyond irony' but agreed it for the sake of Hooper's mother.

He also added an extra three weeks to the end of the six month curfew to make up for the time.

Retired nurse Hooper, 58, of Great Torrington, Devon, received the curfew and a 20 month suspended sentence when she admitted fraud at Exeter Crown Court last week.

She swindled eight luxury trips worth £55,493.05 out of Norwegian Cruise Line by creating a bogus travel agency which she used to book them.

She stayed in penthouse state rooms on all inclusive deals and spent up to ten days a time cruising in luxury in the Mediterranean, the West Indies, Bermuda and Canada.

Fraud: Hooper travelled on cruises in the Mediterranean, the West Indies, Bermuda and Canada, including on the luxury Norwegian Epic ship, pictured

She devised the scheme to take revenge on the cruise company after she was bumped off a cruise which she had paid for after losing her passport in Rome.

She planned to carry on the scam and had booked a total of 54 cruises costing more than £300,000 in total running all the way through 2016 and into 2017.

The cruise company only realised what was going on after she had been on eight different cruises on ships including Norwegian Spirit, Norwegian Epic and Norwegian Star between April and September 2015.

She appeared in person before the Judge to ask for the curfew to be varied to allow her to accompany her mother on the three week, £7,000 British Airways holiday to Mexico this week.

She said she had hidden her offending from her mother, who had booked the trip without knowing of the court case.

She told the judge: 'My mother has never been to Mexico. I have, but she has never been. She is funding the holiday and I am going to help her. My mother knew nothing about the case.

'She has had a cancer removed and does not want to postpone the trip because she does not know how ill she is going to be in six months time.'

The judge told her: 'A lot of people never go to Mexico. In the context of the outrageous stream of holidays you took last year, this application is almost beyond irony.

'The only saving grace is the evidence I have been shown that she has paid for this. I am willing to amend the order. I would not do so if there was any suggestion you had booked this holiday.