A former teacher who was jailed in her absence for deception and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice has today started serving her sentence.

Samantha Burmis failed to appear for sentence on August 2 after taking an overdose and being admitted to Darent Valley Hospital.

She was discharged the same day but then went to Little Brook Hospital in Stone, which treats mental health patients.

On leaving the hospital yesterday, the 44-year-old mother, of Bellman Avenue, Gravesend, was arrested and taken to Maidstone Crown Court.

Burmis, who appeared without legal representation, admitted she had been granted bail with a duty to return to court for sentence but not that she failed to surrender to the court.

After prosecutor Iestyn Morgan said he did not wish to pursue the bail offence, Judge Charles Byers stated: “The bench warrant having been executed, she can now go and serve her sentence.”

Burmis was jailed for two years after a jury heard she used her daughter Nina’s fingerprints in an attempt to hide her criminal past.

She denied obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice, but was convicted of both charges.

Nina Burmis, 24, of Empire Way, Wembley, also denied conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and was convicted.

She was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment suspended for two years with supervision and a curfew for four months.

Her mother maintained she had neither been convicted of an offence nor been to jail and persuaded her daughter Nina to pose as her and give her fingerprints in an attempt to prove her claim.

But the plan came unstuck because Nina’s prints were already on the police file as she had been convicted of using a forged cheque to pay for a £3,200 breast enlargement.

Under her married name Virgo, Samantha Burmis was jailed for a year at Harrow Crown Court in January 1995 for a £90,000 mortgage fraud.

After serving the sentence she studied law at the University of Kent in Canterbury. She then qualified further at the University of Greenwich and trained to be a teacher.

But when she applied for a teaching post at Aylesford School, Maidstone, she failed to reveal the conviction.

She was employed from May 2001 to February 2005 and received a total income of just under £60,000.

Burmis sought damages of £1.2 million at an employment tribunal, claiming unfair dismissal and racial and sexual discrimination.

In September 2009, she was awarded £28,500 in damages.

Passing sentence, Judge David Griffith-Jones QC branded Burmis“devious, manipulative and thoroughly dishonest”.