A crooked police officer formed an elaborate scheme to defraud an insurance company of nearly £6000 after crashing her sports car.

Tayside Police constable Linzi Sherry carried out the fraud after crashing her Vauxhall Tigra into a field when it was uninsured. She then spent a three-month period hiding her car, faking insurance documents and pocketing £5658 to which she was not entitled.

Sherry has since been thrown out of the force along with her partner, fellow Tayside Police constable Mark McLuckie, who helped her with the scheme.

Yesterday at Perth Sheriff Court, Sherry, from Invergowrie, near Dundee, was told she had let down her force colleagues and narrowly escaped being sent to jail.

Sheriff Lindsay Foulis said she had breached the "standards of behaviour" expected of someone in her position.

"This charge is made more serious by the period over which the fraud is operated, the amount involved and the position you held at the time," the sheriff said.

Sherry lost control of her uninsured car on January 16 and crashed through a fence into a field owned by Lucinda Russell, a racehorse trainer.

After that she hatched a scheme to move the wrecked vehicle and hide it under a tarpaulin at her father's farm for two months. She then gave false insurance documents to her own force colleagues and duped the insurance company into paying her compensation, the court heard.

Sherry, who was used by Tayside Police to help promote an anti-litter campaign, quit the force in disgrace after being caught out.

The 25-year-old former beat officer, who worked in Dundee, had been driving illegally without having any insurance for the car when she crashed it on the A977 Kinross to Kincardine road near her former home in Alloa. The car was so badly damaged that Sherry decided the only way to get her money back was to defraud Diamond Insurance.

She decided to drive the car - which has a personalised number plate - to her father's home at Shirlin, Forrestmill, Alloa.

Sherry then dragged a large tarpaulin over the severely damaged car and left it secreted on her father's land for the next two months.

A week after the accident - on January 24 - Sherry contacted the Cardiff-based insurance company and asked to start cover for the car. A month after her policy was started, she contacted the broker and said that she had crashed the previous day and was making a claim for the cost of repairs.

The fraud only came to light after a family dispute led to one of Sherry's relatives sending a letter to the police to tell them what she had been up to, fiscal-depute Robbie Brown said.

Sherry admitted fraud, damaging her vehicle, removing it from the scene of the crash and hiding it and driving it repeatedly without any insurance on the day of the crash.

She was ordered to carry out 220 hours' community service and was banned from driving for four months. She was also ordered to pay the maximum compensation order allowed of £5000.

Her father, Grant, 44, was also charged and initially appeared in court alongside his daughter, but the Crown dropped the charge against him.

Solicitor John McDonald, defending, said his client had simply forgotten to renew her insurance after a direct debit payment was rejected.

McLuckie and Sherry were both initially suspended from Tayside Police when the investigation was launched.

Since the fraud came to light, Sherry handed in her resignation and McLuckie was also "asked to leave the force" according to a Tayside Police spokesman.