Immigration query + disability benefits??

I know approximately nothing (and I am being generous here) about this subject so any help will be greatly appreciated. I’m afraid I have had no training whatsoever regarding anything to do with immigration, R2R, Hab residency etc etc.

Anyway : here we go

I have a 58 year old client who moved to Australia with her (then) husband in January 2003.
She has a British passport and also R2R in Australia.She receives Disability benefits in Australia

Her marriage has gone belly up and she wants to return to the UK as she has no friends or family over there.

She has just bought a house in the UK however she wants to know if or when she will be able to claim any benefits over here as she is too ill to work and her Australian benefits will obviously stop soon.

She returned to the UK on 30th April 2012, bought her house, returned to Oz on 10th June for specialist medical treatment and returned to UK on July 6th. She will fly back to Oz on 14th September for an indeterminate period of time for more specialist medical stuff.

Can anyone please help with this. How long does she have to be in the UK so that she can be considered for DLA, or ESA or Council tax benefit? Does her visits for treatment to Australia make a difference?
She has a full contribution record, and as she worked in the UK for 30 years before leaving in 2003, so SRP should (hopefully) be OK
Are the periods that she is over here linked in some way? Does she have to start again regarding time spent here for residency if she has to go back. If so how long does her absence have to be??

Thanks, as always.

As she is returning from outside the EEA she will need to have been here for an appreciable period of time, usually 1-3 months (see Nessa v DWP, HL).  Factors will be where does she intend to settle with some degree of permanence, has she moved her belongings here, registered with a doctor, dentist etc, registered to vote, bought a house or applied for permanent accommodation, returned on a one way ticket, severed ties with her former country.  This list is illustrative, not exhaustive.  Temporary trips back for medical treatment should not break habitual residence and if she applied now then she should pass the HR test.  Incidentally, certain disability benefits paid in Australia might be exportable.  I had a client once, British citizen returning from New Zealand.  He brought a New Zealand disability benefit to the UK with him, payable, as far as I recall, for life.