A mum of two who claimed State benefits despite having a fortune in a Swiss bank account and putting her children through top fee-paying schools was convicted yesterday of four fraud offences.

Caroline Foxley, 59, was bailed for three weeks for pre-sentence reports by a judge who warned her "You are in danger of going into custody."

Foxley had received £306,000 from the sale of a Cotswolds house in 2007 but deposited the money in a Swiss bank account and claimed income support and Jobseekers Allowance from the Dept of Work and Pensions and council tax and housing benefits from Cotswold District Council.

Such allowances are available only to people with less than £16,000 in capital assets but she did not declare the house proceeds and said she only had about £100 in a Lloyds TSB account.

Ms Foxley, described by prosecutor Stephen Mooney during her trial as 'greedy' and 'thoroughly dishonest,' had claimed she did not regard the £306,000 as her own and felt it was in trust for her ex partner and her two children.

But her explanation was rejected by the jury of seven men and five women in less than an hour.

Before her conviction today her barrister, David Leathley, had upset a woman member of the jury by referring several times to 'spastics' in his closing speech.

He likened Foxley's explanation of having the money 'in trust' to others to donating it to the spastics charity rather than keeping it for oneself.

But his repeated references to 'spastics' during his speech prompted an angry note from a juror which was sent to Judge Alastair McGrigor before he summed up the case.

After the jury had returned to court with its verdicts Mr Leathley apologised, saying: “I unreservedly apologise to the jury if they thought I was being flippant about the physically handicapped."

Mr Leathley, applying for bail for Foxley, said she had recently been without a permanent address and some places she could stay were no longer available because friends had seen publicity about her case this week.

However, she did have a month's use of a house in Cradley, Malvern, which a potential employer had leased for her only to withdraw his offer of a £30,000 job as his housekeeper because of the publicity, he said.

Mr Leathley also told the court he was considering getting a psychiatric or psychological report on her before sentence because his instructing solicitors feel she could be mentally troubled.

Judge McGrigor bailed her to the Cradley address on condition she surrenders her passport and reports once a day to Malvern Police pending sentence on Nov 13.

Ms Foxley, formerly of Mickleton, Glos, had denied four charges of dishonestly failing to report a change in her circumstances affecting her entitlement to benefits and dishonestly making false representations to obtain benefits between March 2007 and March 2009.

Stephen Mooney, prosecuting, told the jury at the start of the trial "The case involves her making a calm, calculated and rational decision to top up her already quite substantial income by making false claims for benefit."

He went on "It is the prosecution case that this is a thoroughly dishonest woman who decided to get money she knew she was not entitled to in the hope and expectation, and arrogance, that she would not be caught.

"Greedy people bank on not being caught but this was a gamble in respect of which this woman failed."

Until March 30th 2007 she did qualify for benefits but she then sold a house which netted her £306,000, said Mr Mooney. She used some money to pay outstanding fees to three schools attended at different times by her children Freddie and Miranda - Cheltenham Ladies College, Malvern College and Bloxham School, Banbury.

"These are not cheap schools,” said Mr Mooney. "Between 2007 and 2009 when she was claiming poverty and penury she paid in the region of £48,000 to Bloxham School.

"This was a woman who had certain high expectations and standards for her children and a sense that she was entitled to a particular standard of living and she was going to have it come what may.

Referring to a £200,000 deposit she made at Habibson's Bank he said "No doubt she was taking advantage of the notorious and well documented reluctance of the Gnomes of Zurich to give out information about their bank accounts. The money went back to Zurich, spirited away, no doubt, to be used by Ms Foxley.

"What we have here is a woman who has been caught out and frankly she doesn't like being caught out. She regards it as rather an affront that those perhaps less clever than her, less sophisticated than her, and less entitled than her, should have the right to pursue her.

"And all this at a time when the poorest in society are having their entitlement to benefits cut from beneath them because of the austerity which affects all of us - but not her.

"This is a case of someone using the benefits system as their own pocket money to help finance an already wealthy lifestyle."