The UK’s Top Ten Benefit Scandals:

[CliveH]

 

1. Falinge, Rochdale – the ‘Benefits Capital of Britain’

Known as the ‘benefits capital of Britain’, Falinge, Rochdale is home to 1,141 people of working age – and only 651 of them hold down jobs. The rest of its inhabitants are supported by state benefits, with the majority of them ‘on the sick’, claiming incapacity benefits. Conditions that qualify for incapacity payments include alcoholism, stress and obesity. There are 2.6 million people in the UK claiming incapacity benefits for being too ill to work or seek employment; this accounts for 4.6% of the population. However 42.9% of Falinge residents rely on sick benefits – making Falinge the sickest place in Britain.

Cost to the UK taxpayer each week = £41,405

 

2. Hate cleric incites violence against the British while wife draws £680/week in benefits

Whilst on trial for terror charges, radical Islamic cleric and al-Quaeda supporter Abu Hamza received £1.1 million in state-funded legal aid to defend himself on charges that resulted in a conviction and imprisonment in 2004. Meanwhile, his wife and eight children were claiming £680 each week in state benefits, and living in a £550,000 council house, despite the fact Hazma owned another home in Acton, unbeknownst to the authorities. The house was sold while Hazma was in prison, and made him a £130,000 profit, despite his assets being frozen.

Cost to the UK taxpayer each week = £680

 

3. Benefits mother of 13 wants more children to avoid working

Since leaving school pregnant at the age of 16, Ellen Morris has had 13 children – and raised them all on benefit money. Now that some of her children have left home and the youngest is four, rather than thinking about finding work, Ms Morris is planning to have more children – so that the council will have to provide her with a six bedroom house, rent-free; and her benefit payments will rise to fund her 40 cigarette a day habit and her fondness for vodka and cokes. Ms Morris already receives £27,612 annually in benefits – to bring home that much money after tax, a worker would have to be on a salary of £37,500.

Cost to the UK taxpayer each week = £531

 

4. 80 stone family is ‘too fat to work’

The Chawner family, who have a combined weight of 80 stone, claim they are too big to work, and instead choose to live off an estimated £22,000 a year in benefits. Father Philip and Audrey have been unemployed for more than a decade due to obesity-related health problems; and despite having trained as hairdressers, neither daughter Samantha or Emma have been able to find work, as they claim they are discriminated against by potential employers due to their size. Emma says, ‘We’re the victims in all of this. It’s not our fault we can’t work. We’ve both applied for hundreds of jobs. It’s not our fault no one wants to employ fat people. Someone should be helping us, not accusing us.’ However, Emma refused a security job offer on live radio one month after making this statement because she didn’t like the sound of it, preferring to remain on benefits.

Cost to the UK taxpayer each week = £423

 

5. Couple made up 16 children in child benefit fraud

David Wilshaw, 58, and partner Nancy Stevenson, 59, invented 16 children in a benefit fraud scheme that yielded them over £75,000 over four years. The couple pocketed more than £400 a week for the fictitious children, blowing the money on a gambling addiction and alcohol abuse. After being jailed for fraud, Wilshaw claimed he had carried out a ‘public service’ in committing his crimes, by revealing the loopholes in the benefits system.

Cost to the UK taxpayer each week = £400

 

6. Mother leaves £1 million home for big issue seller

Catherine Scott, 18, originally moved out of her parents’ £1 million home at the age of 14 to have a baby with a Big Issue seller twice her age. She has now given birth to twins by a different father and wants even more benefit money, claiming that £16,000 a year is not enough to live on – despite this being close to what the average wage earner in the UK lives on. She is also demanding to be re-housed by the council in a more affluent area, because the three-bed housing association home in Margate they currently live in is inadequate: ‘We’re not being fussy but we don’t know anyone and there are 52 steps up to our front door. We also have to share the garden with six neighbours.’

Cost to the UK taxpayer each week = £307

 

 

7. 29-stone mother spends benefits funding child abuse

29-stone benefits mum, Leanne Salt, claims she is ‘too busy’ to feed her 8 month old triplets healthy food. Instead, she spends her child benefits and family allowance feeding them on a junk and fast-food diet including microwave lasagne, fish and chips, and McDonalds. Their diet is so high in calories that each toddler is consuming their recommended weekly calorie intake of 5,355 calories every four days – which could be called tantamount to child abuse. Leanne claims she feeds her children vegetables only once a week, for fear that healthy food will make them ‘anorexic’. Leanne says, ‘My babies were six months old when they had their first McDonald’s. They like fish and chips too. I chew the food first so they can eat it because they haven’t got any teeth yet’.

Cost to the UK taxpayer each week = £227

 

8. Strongest man in Cornwall claiming disability benefits

The winner of the Cornwall Strongman competition was a picture of health and strength when he won the 2007 annual competition. Jonathan Stentiford, from St Neots in Cornwall successfully completed a number of strength-display challenges, including lifting and holding up the end of a Mini Metro – winning the title and £300. Not bad for someone on disability benefits. At the time, Stentiford was illegally claiming £40,000 in disability payments, and had been over a four year period after failing to tell authorities that his condition had improved. He also held a job during a part of that time, but didn’t inform authorities of his employment for fear of losing his claim for housing and council tax benefits.

Cost to the UK taxpayer each week = £192

 

9. Benefit cheat on incapacity benefits was scuba diving in Kenya while ‘too sick to walk’

A British couple illegally claimed £40,000 in benefits while sailing round the world in a luxury £100,000 yacht. While claiming she was too sick to work – and even ‘too ill to get out of bed’ – Shashi Bacheta was in fact scuba diving in Kenya and swimming with dolphins in the Canary Islands. Her partner, Jeffery Cole, jointly claimed £13,000 in benefits with Bacheta, despite being able to purchase the lavish yacht with money he received as an inheritance.

Cost to the UK taxpayer each week = £128

 

10. Claiming benefits while sitting on a £550,000 goldmine

Asylum seeker Massoud Montazery claimed £25,000 in benefits after claiming to be penniless and escaping prosecution in his native Iran. In reality he had £550,000 in a secret bank account, drove a Mercedes Benz, dressed in designer clothes and also earned money illegally as a salesman for a babywear company.

Cost to the UK taxpayer each week = £120

 

[nightrider]

It makes you want to spit doesn't it?

[W3526602]

Hi,

 

A new neighbour moved in, bought a house for £70,000 on a mortgage, despite being on benefits.

 

After a while he asked council to find him a 5-bedroom council house, as he wanted to have another child (already had 3). Council refused, so he said OK - he would leave his wife.

 

Council responded by offering to pay his mortgage. They paid it for two years, then he sold the house for £110,000.

 

Now, I can accept that paying his mortgage was the cheapest solution. But any assistance like this should be reclaimable when the house is sold.

 

Would I be surprised if one day, he sold his new house, and went walkabout. His wife and kids would be given a council house. Having "spent" the proceeds from sale of house, he could then return to his wife.

 

602

[nightrider]

W3526602 - 2010-01-13 4:27 PM

 

Hi,

 

A new neighbour moved in, bought a house for £70,000 on a mortgage, despite being on benefits.

 

After a while he asked council to find him a 5-bedroom council house, as he wanted to have another child (already had 3). Council refused, so he said OK - he would leave his wife.

 

Council responded by offering to pay his mortgage. They paid it for two years, then he sold the house for £110,000.

 

Now, I can accept that paying his mortgage was the cheapest solution. But any assistance like this should be reclaimable when the house is sold.

 

Would I be surprised if one day, he sold his new house, and went walkabout. His wife and kids would be given a council house. Having "spent" the proceeds from sale of house, he could then return to his wife.

 

602

 

In the old days of the dole, leaving your wife to get more benefits was known as the "pancrack" I have no doubt it is still going on.

Can't figure out how that neighbour of yours got a mortgage while claiming benefits.

I fail to see how this guy could "blackmail" the benefits or council to pay his mortgage, they might be stupid but not that stupid.

 

[Syd]

Hi Clive

With all due respect I simply cannot see your "top ten" actually being the "TOP TEN"

 

Maybe a more realistic title for your post should have been " The UKs, top ten discovered benefit scandals, to date"

 

I suspect they are all too small fry to be the top ten

[CliveH]

Probably you are right Syd.

 

I watched the last half hour of one of these "Traffic Cops" programmes last night where the police raided a house where they had noticed the same handwriting on numerous fixed penalty speeding tickets and suspected someone was "tacking the wrap" for the real offender.

 

And indeed this was true.

 

But what they actually found when the raided the house was a Pakistani gentleman who ran an immigration and identity fraud racket such that he owned four houses and rented them out to illegal immigrants he had presumably helped to bring into the country whilst all the time claiming benefits from the UK social system.

 

The disgust of the Police guys was very evident indeed.

 

Not least when they discovered that the proceeds of the crimes and our benefit £'s had also been used to purchase a sever bedroom house back in Pakistan.

 

Now please believe me! - I am not nor have I ever been or ever want to be a racist! - But JHC!!! - are we all blind stupid or what???

 

How the hell did this guy manage to break the rules for so long?

 

He got a 5 year prison sentence which means he will be out in two and a half years less whatever time spent on remand and whilst the authorities can recover assets that are the proceeds of crime in the UK - I am not sure and doubt very much that they will be able to recover the no doubt far larger sums spirited away to Pakistan of which no doubt that 7 bedroom house is only part.

 

We need a serious crackdown on benefit fraud with massive penalties. It is either that or we workers and tax payers will just have to get used to our tax pounds being given away to people who do not deserve it.

>:-(

[Tony Jones]

Let's have a sense of proportion here.

If "benefits" are loosely defined as payments made by the State (ie the taxpayers) to individuals, for any reason other than actual work, then none of these come close to some of the MPs expenses, let alone the bonuses paid out by (state-subsidised) banks!

[malc d]

And then of course there's Europe.

 

Are the auditors still refusing to sign off the accounts, as they have been refusing to do for years ?

 

Where on earth do you start to sort all this out. There don't seem to be any politicians who are able / willing to do it.

 

 

:-(

[Syd]

Ah, but the only bonuses that I feel are really warranted are the ones that the MOD paid to their staff working on the dangerous pen pushing work