A FORMER social worker being sued by Hampshire County Council after paying her more than £18,000 by mistake today declared: "They will not get a penny."

The Daily Echo tracked down the former social worker to her new home in Cape Town, South Africa, where she lives with her elderly mother.

Clarice Jansen, 57, worked for the authority for over 25 years before she left in 1999 to care for her father.

She said she was "stunned" at the news that the council was suing her for the money.

She told the Daily Echo she had agreed with her former bosses to take a career break to care for her father, who has since died.

Speaking from her parents' home she said she was not to blame for the authority's blunder and refused to pay back the money.

Miss Jansen says she wrote to the council in a bid to find out if she was entitled to get the cash after she took an agreed career break back in 1999.

But she claims finance bosses never replied to her letter.

The council's legal team has issued a High Court writ against Miss Jansen in a bid to recover the £18,094.02 and a further £2,692.44 interest on the debt.

In their claim, the council admit that Miss Jansen was paid wages between April 1999 and August 2001 due to a clerical error.

Bosses at the council's payroll services section were not told that Miss Jansen had left the authority in April 1999 and continued to pay her salary into her National Westminster Bank account in Basingstoke.

But an angry Miss Jansen told the Daily Echo that the council were to blame for the mistake and said she would be contesting the claim.

The single former social worker currently lives at her parents' flat in a suburb of Cape Town. She left her Hampshire home to care for her elderly father who fell seriously ill three years ago.

He died in September last year aged 88. She is now caring for her 80-year-old mother who suffered a number of minor strokes due to the shock.

She said: "As far as I am concerned, a career break was agreed and they continued to pay me. If they have paid me and it was a genuine mistake, it is their mistake and not mine.

"I could understand it going on for a couple of months but not for so long.

"They are trying to cover their tracks and they are trying to scapegoat me for their mistake instead of the people who made the mistake in the department.

"If this is the sort of mistake they are making, what else are they doing?"

Miss Jansen said she had agreed a career break with the authority when her father fell ill in South Africa three years ago.

She added she had written to the authority to ask about getting her job back but they had told her she did not have a contract so she was not entitled to return to work.

According to Miss Jansen, her wage payments were never mentioned.

She said: "They continued to pay me and I thought it was part of the career break. Nothing was ever specified. There was no reply to my letters."

She added: "Caring for my father was the whole idea of me coming out here and that was why I applied for the career break.

"My mum is still in a state of post-bereavement. She has suffered a couple of minor strokes.

"It is not my fault that this has happened. There was an agreement that I could take a career break. It has not been easy. I never even thought this legal action was a possibility."