HUSBAND-and-wife fraudsters, who conned thousands of people in a nationwide work from home scam, lost their home yesterday on the orders of a judge.

Richard Alderson, 32, and his wife, Alison, 35, of Briarhill, Chester-le-Street, County Dur-ham, advertised around the country for home workers to fill envelopes for mail order firms.

They pledged to pay £60 per hundred envelopes.

But police said that only two people out of 16,000 made enough from the work to recover their initial payment.

When workers rang to complain, they found themselves leaving messages on a premium rate £1-a-minute phone line.

This scam netted the Aldersons another £94,000.

The couple's victims included a woman of 84, a bride saving for her wedding, and a single mother on benefits of only £70-a-week.

They were arrested after Durham trading standards officers and police received complaints from the Shetland Isles to Cornwall.

The couple led the high life, driving a Porsche and throwing lavish parties at their home.

But their affluent lifestyle came to an end yesterday when Judge George Moorhouse ruled that the house should be confiscated.

He said that the couple had each benefited by £125,000 from their crimes. Although they had assets of £18,479 - the rest of the cash will be taken from the sale of their home.

The Aldersons ran ten companies from accommodation addresses in Newcastle, Darlington, Stockton, King's Lynn, Ashton-under-Lyne, Chesterfield, Bournemouth, Hyde, in Cheshire, Biggleswade, and London.

They included flats in Hartington Road, Stockton, and Inglewood Close, Darlington.

The couple placed job adverts in local newspapers and people who replied were asked to send more money to one of their other companies, the court was told.

When police raided the headquarters of AR Enterprises in Chester-le-Street and Birtley, County Durham, in April 2000, they found a bin-liner stuffed with complaint letters.

The Aldersons, of Briarhill Close, Chester-le-Street, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud members of the public between May 1, 1998, and December 31, 2000, by offering employment subject to the payment of a registration fee when there was no intention to provide such employment.

Richard Alderson was jailed, in February, for three-and-a-half years.

His wife was given a two-year sentence suspended for two years.