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A clairvoyant was ordered to pay back almost £27,000 of benefits she'd fraudulently claimed while working as a psychic.

Transgender Amanda Barrymore was told to repay the housing benefit and unpaid council tax she owes to the taxpayer.

Amanda, 62, who was born Mike, was charging up to £40 an hour for private readings face to face, on the phone and on Skype.

Now investigators have made it crystal clear to her that despite avoiding a year in jail, all the money she swindled will have to be paid back.

Barrymore, 62, of Longstraw Close in Stanway, Essex, boasts on one of her Facebook accounts of being a “self-confessed Spiritual Workaholic”.

Her website also details how her 36 years of work have taken her abroad to give people one-to-one readings or public demonstrations.

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Barrymore also says online how she has a spiritual guide called ‘Patrick’ who was a 19th century Catholic priest.

“We work well together as I am a ’say it as it is’ and a ‘very upfront and no frills’ type of medium,” she writes.

But benefit fraud investigators discovered she’d been not so upfront when it came to pretending to be jobless.

Her fraud came to light following a Department for Work and Pensions exercise when investigators contacted telemarketing companies to obtain details of their employees and sub-contractors.

Barrymore admitted to magistrates she had been claiming housing benefit and council tax reductions for four years up to July 2014.

The court was also told Jobseekers’ Allowance and Employment and Support Allowance were wrongfully claimed in January and September 2010.

Magistrates gave Barrymore a year-long suspended jail term, community work for 180 hours and a £165 bill for various court charges.

Gordon Collins, of the Fraud and Error Service at the Department for Work and Pensions, said: “I can confirm that DWP have recently successfully prosecuted Amanda Barrymore for failing to declare that she was working as a clairvoyant.

“This meant that she was not entitled to the benefits that she had been claiming leading to the overpaid benefit which you have details of.”

He added the DWP will directly recover from Barrymore the £26,711.44 owed to the taxpayer.

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Mr Collins said: "I cannot disclose what specific arrangements have been agreed as this would constitute revelling personal information but I can confirm that recovery of taxpayers’ money will take place either by payments of lump sums or by regular repayments until all of the monies are repaid – this is the case for all of these types of recovery of fraudulent claims to benefit.

“We would have considered using the Proceeds of Crime Act to recover this money but there are no assets that we can legally seize.”

“The DWP do have a helpline where members of the public can leave details of individuals who they suspect of committing benefit fraud – details can be left anonymously and are treated in the strictest of confidence.

“All such referrals are looked at and acted on where evidence is found that benefit fraud is taking place.”

Barrymore’s website describes how she has been interviewed by the press, including psychic magazines, radio and television.

Publicity material for her autobiography, The Complete Autobiography of Amanda E. Barrymore, says she is “a gifted Psychic Medium who has worked internationally and on T.V.

Amanda's autobiography takes you through a journey of transformation.

“If learning to cope with psychic experiences from a very young age were not enough, her journey from being a boy named Mike into Amanda the Psychic Medium is a truly inspiring story. “

Barrymore did not respond to requests for a comment.

The number for the National Benefit Fraud Hotline is 0800 854 440.