Bernadette O’Loughlin, 56, pleaded guilty at Letterkenny Circuit Court to using a form to get letters of administration to Keith O’Loughlin’s estate, despite divorcing him in 2002.

She told gardaí that she had no memory of getting a divorce and added that she didn’t think a divorce in Northern Ireland would count south of the border anyway, the Irish Independent reports.

Mr O’Loughlin died in 2006 at the age of 39, having remarried and had a son, who ultimately received a fraction of what the estate was worth at the time of his father’s death.

Judge John Aylmer imposed a sentence of three years’ imprisonment, suspended on condition that Ms O’Loughlin enter a bond to keep the peace and be of good behaviour for three years.