A woman who conned authorities out of £7,500 in compensation money after falsely claiming she was raped was sentenced to six months in a young offenders' institution last night.

Natalie Knighting, 20, told police she was raped by a tramp on her way home from a funfair in Newcastle upon Tyne four years ago, Newcastle Crown Court heard.

Knighting, a mother of three from Walker, Newcastle, gave detailed descriptions of the rapist to police but an investigation drew a blank.

She applied to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board and was awarded £7,500 in compensation in July 1999.

After a breakthrough in the police investigation Knighting was reinterviewed when a DNA specimen she provided from the alleged rapist was matched to a man arrested on unrelated matters in October 1999.

She admitted she had fabricated the rape, retracted her original statements and said she had consented to sex.

Knighting pleaded guilty to wasting police time and obtaining property by deception.

Judge David Hodson, sentencing Knighting, who wept in the dock, said: ''It must be plain to anyone if they are making a complaint of this nature, when there's no substance in it whatsoever and where precious police resources are wasted, that the person who does that can only expect to believe they will get a custodial sentence.

''I've thought long and hard about what is the appropriate grounds for dealing with you.

"It's quite clear you have these three very young children to bring up and the consequences of you losing your liberty would be substantial for them. You must receive a custodial sentence for these serious offences, but what I do is to very substantially reduce the sentence I would otherwise have passed."

He passed concurrent sentences of six months for obtaining property by deception and four months for wasting police time.

Prosecutor Tim Parkin said about 140 hours of police time were used in the investigation and efforts to find the £7,500 compensation had failed.

Defending, Martina Connolly said Knighting had given birth to her first child three months before the alleged attack and been suffering from post-natal depression.

She said: ''The reason why she did what she did was the care and attention that she got. She was the centre of attention."