SUPER-size families living in local ­authority “mansions” have become Britain’s biggest scroungers, raking in £6million a year from the taxpayer.

One couple with 14 children get their £1,700-a-month rent paid by the local council and receive another £50,000 a year in benefits.

In another house, a family of eight adults and nine children live in luxury. While most of us struggle to meet rent or mortgage payments.

We discovered six, seven and eight-bedroom properties used to accommodate huge households, all at taxpayers’ ex­pense. Our inquiries under the Freedom of Information Act to 108 town halls found the average cost of providing accommodation to the biggest family in each council area was £17,500 a year or £1,450 a month.

It means the cost across all 335 councils in England and Wales is close to £6million.

A single mother-of-six is getting more than £80,000 a year from the taxpayer to live in a £2million mansion in an exclusive London suburb.

Essma Marjam, 34, is given almost £7,000 a month in housing benefits to pay the rent on the five-bedroom villa just yards from Sir Paul McCartney's house and Lord's cricket ground.

She also receives an estimated £15,000 a year in other payouts, such as child benefit, to help look after her children, aged from five months to 14.

HATE cleric Anjem Choudary nets £25,000 a year in benefits - £8,000 MORE than the take-home pay of soldiers fighting in Afghanistan, The Sun can reveal.

The Muslim extremist's handouts are not taxed, making his income equivalent to a £32,500 salary.

The revelation came amid mounting fury over bile-spouting Choudary's plan for a parade by Muslim hard-liners through repatriation town Wootton Bassett.

He has also likened British soldiers to Nazi stormtroopers.

State handout figures leaked to The Sun show Choudary, 42, gets £15,600 a year in housing benefit - to live in a £320,000 house in Leytonstone, East London.

The cleric is also given a £1,820 council tax allowance, £5,200 in income support and £3,120 in child benefits. That's a total of £25,740.

By contrast, a private fighting the Taliban in the Afghan badlands is paid a basic £16,680 - or £13,430 after tax.

He also gets a £2,380 bonus for serving on the frontline and a £1,194 "separation allowance" for being away from home.

That makes total take-home earnings of £17,004.

A FATHER whose soldier son was killed in Afghanistan lashed out last night at the huge state handouts given to rabble-rousing Anjem Choudary.

The Muslim cleric's untaxed income of £25,740 is thousands more than 21-year-old gunner Jack Sadler was earning before he was blown up by a roadside bomb.

And Jack's outraged dad Ian, 60, said: "These lads don't get paid what they deserve because they sacrifice so much. Choudary just doesn't deserve the money full stop. Whose team is he cheering for anyway? It's appalling there are young soldiers out there serving Queen and country and they're getting a pittance while this man takes his handouts. It's wrong these people's lives are being subsidised. It's utterly galling.

Their magnificent townhouse overlooks a courtyard and is in one of the most expensive areas of London.

It has four storeys, six bedrooms (some with balconies), three sitting rooms and four bathrooms - as well as a concierge service.

The property is worth a cool £1.8 million and would cost you or me nearly £1,600 a week to rent.

So who do you think lives here. Is it: (a) a banker; (b) an MP fiddling expenses; or (c) an unemployed former asylum seeker and her family?

The last answer is the correct one.

In other words, taxpayers are picking up the £6,400-a-month bill to keep Nasra Warsame, seven of her brood and her elderly mother in the lap of luxury.

Mrs Warsame's husband and their eighth child, by the way, have been provided with a two-bedroom council flat nearby. His wife's palatial residence isn't big enough, apparently, to accommodate them all.

So how is Mrs Warsame enjoying her publicly-funded mansion?

There was no response when we 'buzzed' her state-of-the art video intercom which allows her to screen visitors.

No one could blame her for keeping a low profile (if that's possible in such a grand home), considering that her case, among others, prompted the Government's announcement this week that benefit rules are to be changed.

For the Warsames are one of a number of families enjoying life on Millionaires' Row, courtesy of our welfare state system. Let's take a quick tour.

First stop, David Cameron's trendy neighbourhood of Notting Hill and a £2.6million villa with wooden floors, granite work tops and roof terrace - home to single mother-of-eight Francesca Walker.

Francesca, whose mother is Jamaican, spent many years in a succession of council flats, which she claimed were virtually uninhabitable.

As a result, the council was forced to consider her as 'technically homeless'.
Francesca Walker council house

Unfair: 800 households in Westminster qualify for £500-a-week housing allowance, at a cost of £27.3million

Her eight children are fathered by two different men and she was housed in a privately-owned villa because the council had no suitable accommodation of its own.

Next is a detached, double-fronted £1.2million house in Acton, West London, with three shower rooms and 'accessories' including a 50-in plasma TV, laptops, Wii, iPhone and PlayStation - home to the seven-strong Saiedi family from Afghanistan.

Then there is the £1million mock-Tudor property, comprising two sitting rooms, conservatory and double garage, in Edgware (home to single mother-of-five Omowunmi Odia), and another £1million property in Barnet (home to the Connors, a family of Irish travellers).

In fact, 16 families are living in million-pound-plus London properties funded by the controversial Local Housing Allowance, which allows people to rent from private landlords and hand the bill to the state.

These examples alone cost us £2.4million a year - enough to put at least 100 extra police officers on the streets of the capital.

But this isn't the real story, or not all of the story, anyway. It gets even worse.

Work and Pensions Secretary Yvette Cooper insists 'very high rents' represent only a 'small proportion' of overall housing allowance claims.

Well, that depends on how you define 'very high'. Does £1,000-a-week fall into this category?

The Mail has learned that around 100 households, mostly in London, now receive this amount via their local authority.

How many families can afford monthly mortgage repayments of £4,000?

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said it could not provide us with figures for those claiming £500 a week without receiving a Freedom of Information request in writing, which means Christmas would have come and gone by the time we got an answer.

But Tory-run Westminster Council, which has been left to pick up the flak over Mrs Warsame, was happy to oblige. Funnily enough, no Freedom of Information request was required.

In fact, a staggering 800 households in the borough qualify for £500-a-week payments.

Or, to put it another way, they are living in properties that, back in the real world, they would only be able to afford if they were earning between £70,000 and £80,000 a year.

The average salary in this country, remember, is a little more than £20,000 a year.

The annual bill for the 'Westminster 800'? A shameful £27.3 million. The statistics for other London boroughs are equally outrageous.

Is there anyone - apart from the staff of The Guardian - who doesn't think this is a scandal; a two-fingered salute, metaphorically speaking, to every family in Britain which isn't milking the benefits system?

A FAMILY of former asylum seekers is living in a £1.8m central London home at a cost to the taxpayer of £1,600 a week, despite a pledge by ministers to crack down on housing benefit payments.

Somali-born Nasra Warsame, seven of her children and her mother moved into the six-bedroom property last month after Westminster council agreed to pay the rent.

Her husband and an eighth child are living in a separate “overspill” property also paid for by housing benefit. Warsame’s five-storey home boasts three sitting rooms and four bathrooms. It is within walking distance of the West End.

This weekend critics said the £1,600 payment — £83,000 a year — was “excessive” and accused the government of failing to get to grips with Britain’s annual £17 billion housing benefit bill.

Last year James Purnell, then work and pensions secretary, promised to make housing benefit “fair to taxpayers” as well as to people on low incomes.

Today’s revelations, however, appear to contradict that claim. The Warsame family home is part of a smart 1960s development just yards from Edgware Road Underground station.

It is understood that the house was previously rented out at £800 per week — considered by estate agents in the area as the going rate for similar properties. It is unclear why the taxpayer is having to pay twice that rate.

SIX moaning asylum seekers have landed bigger council houses after winning a legal battle with taxpayers’ cash. The Somalians were given free homes shortly after they arrived in Britain. But they soon complained the accommodation was too small after their families arrived from abroad. One refugee was in a two-bed flat, but a year later was joined here by his wife and six children. Another was also joined by his wife and six children before she gave birth to another child. They took their demands to court – using legal aid cash – after Birmingham council said it had no accommodation left. But yesterday it was revealed they been moved into bigger houses after winning the action. One got a five-bedroom mansion, four got four-bedroom homes and another received a three-bedroom house. None of the asylum seekers is believed to be working and all were said to be living off welfare benefits.

A Nigerian mother-of-five is living in a five bedroom, detached house with an annual rent of £25,000 paid for by taxpayers.

The house, worth as much as £1 million at the height of the property boom, is situated in a smart cul-de-sac close to shops in Edgware village, north London.

The tenant, Omowunmi Odia, said today she was pleased to be living there - the family's previous home was a cramped flat.

Mother-of-five Omowunmi Odia is pleased with her new detached house which was worth as much as £1m at the height of the property boom.

'I was living in a two-bedroom apartment with my five children and only moved in here two weeks ago,' said Mrs Odia, who is in her thirties.

'They didn't have any council houses big enough for me so I found this one. I like it; the children like it,' she added.

Mrs Odia, who drives a six-year-old family car, was forced out of her previous home after a court order was obtained against her.

Threatened with homelessness, she was rehoused by Barnet council in her new house, bought by its owners in 2005 for £650,000.

This five-bedroom London home has an annual rent of £25,000 paid for by taxpayers.

Government rules entitle Mrs Odia, who has been in the UK for 10 years, to live in a five-bedroom house.

She lives off benefits and has not been in contact with her husband, who remains in Nigeria, for at least three years.

Mrs Odia's new home also has two large sitting rooms, a conservatory which backs on to a garden, and a double garage. It is, however, unfurnished and most of the rooms are empty bar a leather sofa and armchairs in one of the sitting rooms.

Mrs Odia said the council had tried to rehouse her in Enfield, north London, but she had held out for Edgware, close to her children's schools. One of the bedrooms, she said, was "no bigger than a shoebox".

More than £4 billion of taxpayers' money is being spent on housing benefit across London - an increase of more than 40 per cent in five years.

The new figures will fuel growing concern that private landlords are profiting from a system threatening to spiral out of control.

In the 12 months to April this year, £4.15 billion was spent by the Government on housing benefit in London, compared with £2.94 billion in 2003.

A mother from Camden is living in Britain's most expensive council house worth £2million, it emerged today.

Ruth Ben-Adir, 44, is being housed in the historic Victorian lodge which sits on the edge of a 29-acre estate in Highgate Village.

The mother-of-one moved into the Grade II-listed building while repairs are being carried out on her council home in Kentish Town.

The lodge is situated in Waterlow Park and is close to homes belonging to personalities such as George Michael and Sting, as well as Government minister Tessa Jowell.

A family of 13 is demanding that town hall chiefs rehouse them, claiming life in their four-bedroom house has become impossible.
Michelle and Robert Neasham have 11 children between them, aged from two to 17, and say they are struggling to cope with four bedrooms and one bathroom between them.
The Neashams' two-year-old daughter Yasmine still sleeps in a cot in her parents' room, while 14-year-old Carol-Anne McFadgen - Mrs Neasham's daughter from a previous marriage - has to share a double bed with stepbrothers Conner, five, and Brandon, eight.
Crowded house: Michelle and Robert Neasham with their 11 children, who are forced to share beds in a four-bedroom house
Despite receiving £2,269 a month in child benefit and child tax credits - £27,228 a year - Mrs Neasham says the money does not go far enough and life is becoming impossible in the house in Felling, Gateshead.
She said: 'We have had enough. It's a total nightmare living here. None of us have any privacy.
'We are not coping, and when we ask for help we get fobbed off. We all get on and help each other out but it's not very easy.
She and her husband married 13 years ago, bringing together her three children from her former marriage and his four children from his last relationship. The couple have since had four of their own children.
The family is now made up of Santana, 17, Tina, 17, Natalie, 16, Carol-Anne, 14, Danielle, 15, Robert, 12, Hope, nine, Brandon, eight, Amiee, six, Conner, five and Yasmine, two.

A single mother with three children has been placed by her local council in a £1.5million mews house.

The luxurious three-storey property, in the heart of London's exclusive Kensington, costs an astonishing £1,125 a week to rent - a cost being met by housing benefit, at taxpayers' expense. Appalled neighbours say the house concerned is the biggest on the central yet quiet street. Boston Ivy climbs its walls, and it features a juliet balcony and a large garage.

Jobless couple with 12 children are given a £500,000 home

It's the type of highly-desirable family home that is well beyond the reach of many middle-class professionals.
A detached period house, with eight bedrooms, a garden, its own driveway and all set in a leafy residential area of well-to-do Newbury, Berkshire.

But Carl and Samantha Gillespie - together with their 12 children - have been able to move in without paying the slightest heed to Britain's sky-rocketing house prices.

In fact the couple have been given the keys without lifting a finger in work.  The Gillespie family: Karl , Samantha and their 12 children
It has been revealed that the couple - neither of whom work and who receive an astonishing £44,000 in benefits a year - have been housed in the £500,000 property by their local council.

West Berkshire County Council gave them the keys after their previous council home burnt down in a blaze sparked by one of the couple's children.

The decision was greeted with anger and incredulity by the couple's new neighbours, many of whom have spent years working hard to struggle up the property ladder.

The Gillespies have been dubbed 'Britain's biggest scroungers' and are the most notorious example of people taking advantage of our generous benefits system.

The £500,000 eight-bedroom house that the family have been given in Newbury.  They receive the equivalent of £44,000 a year in benefits, a figure made up of £1,500 a month housing benefit; £1,200 a month child tax credit; £560 a month child benefits; £280 job seeker's allowance and £1,600 a year in council tax.

Former book-keeper Samantha, 35, had five children from a previous relationship when she married Carl, who used to work as a door-to-door salesman. They are Craig, 16, Adam, 14, Jack, 13, Rebekah, 11, and Harry, nine.

The couple then had seven of their own: twins Parris-Jordan and Kesla Blu, eight; twins Mason and Peaches, six; Logan, four, and the three-year-old twins Skye and Kalifornya.

When asked why they don't work, the couple say that looking after their children is a full time job. And they claim they would earn less working than they do claiming the dole.

Mr Gillespie has revealed that he quit a job at stacking shelves at Asda before he had even started, when he realised the £300 a week he would earn would result in a £400 benefits cut.

He said: "Some people may think we're a bunch of spongers, but it's not true." His wife added: "I was born to have children, it's what I am here for."

However, their MP, Labour's Martin Salter, has said "There is no excuse for any able-bodied person to be long-term unemployed in Reading, where jobs are plentiful.

"People who have large families should accept financial responsibility for that decision."
Prior to their latest home, the Gillespies were housed in a five-bedroom property in Purley-on-Thames, Berkshire.
However, in June last year the property burnt down when one of the family's youngest twins played with a cigarette lighter.

Following that they lived in temporary council accommodation and the children were ferried to and from school in a minibus, paid for by the council.

Their latest home, formerly a hotel, is estimated to have cost £350,000 to buy and a further £150,000 to renovate with double-glazing, carpets, central heating and furniture.

Mr and Mrs Gillespie claim that they want to go out to work but would lose more than they gain.
The family said when they were offered an eight-bedroom £500,000 house from the council they had no choice but to take it as previous accommodation had been totally unsuitable.

Despite this, neighbours said the family were the 'wrong sort' and shouldn't be there.
Mr Gillespie, 34, said: "We're not scroungers and if it was economical for me to work then I would do.
"We can just about survive on the money we've got but I can't give my kids nice things that other parents could like days out, and if I were working I could afford them.

"The last job I had was in 2000 or 2001 when I was working at ASDA earning £300 to £350 a month.
"I did this for ten weeks and at that time my housing benefit was cut from £1600 to £800 a month so it just didn't make sense for me to carry on working."

Mrs Gillespie, 36, added: "All our kids are in school and they want to make something of themselves and not just scrounge and live off the dole.

"My oldest son Craig joined the army last week and we're doing our best to make sure the others have careers as well."
"If we were scroungers we'd be telling them to either have babies or get straight on the dole, but we're not."
"Before we were offered this house we lived in a three-bedroom house which was temporary accommodation."
"There were seven boys in one bedroom and five girls in another. In the boys bedroom we had three sets of bunk beds lined up next to each other and you could hardly move".

The house itself is a three storey modern brick detached farmhouse style home in a quiet residential street in Newbury.

It has its own gate and is set back from the road by a gravel driveway on which are a Fiat Bravo, a Ford Escort, two bicycles, a broken pushchair and a washing machine.

Neighbour Betty Giles, 80, said: "It's not right for them to be in there. I live with my son and he's mortgaged up to his eyeballs so it's pretty stiff for him to see them move into such a nice house."

Another female neighbour in her sixties, who declined to be named for fear of retribution, said: "They're the wrong sort of people for round here."

"Most people on the street are elderly and I think there's only one other family in the vicinity, but nowhere near as big as theirs.

"The general mood is that they're not wanted." The family moved in on May 14th.
Mrs Gillespie showed me her annual income support form which was £19,775.74 but this does not include housing benefit.
Paul and Samantha have eight children together and she has four from a previous relationship, making 12 in total.
The children they have had together are Harry 10, Parris Jordan 8, Kesla 8, Mason 7, Peaches 7, Logan 5, Skye 3 and Californya 3.

Samantha's children from her previous relationship are Craig 17, Adam 16, Jack 14 and Rebekah 13.
West Berkshire Council was unavailable for comment

A man who invented 16 children to claim £75,000 in benefit payments was jailed yesterday.
David Wilshaw, 58, and his partner Nancy Stevenson, 59, took the money after he fabricated a huge family over a four-year period.

The idea for the fraud was born after the pair applied for tax credits for two of Stevenson's children and realised that nobody asked to see birth certificates or any other proof of their existence.

David Wilshaw and Nancy Stevenson: He bragged of doing a public service Wilshaw then went on to make up the names of 16 children, pocketing more than £400 a week.
Bristol Crown Court heard Wilshaw spent more than that amount every week in betting shops, while Stevenson admitted drinking two bottles of brandy a day.

When he was finally arrested, Wilshaw bragged that he was "doing a public service" by exposing the loophole in the benefits system.

Yesterday he was sentenced to 20 months in prison after admitting fraud, handling stolen goods and obtaining property by deception.

Stevenson avoided jail after it was said she had played a "lesser role" and that Wilshaw had transferred just £9,000 of the money into her account.

She admitted one charge of money laundering and a further charge of tax credit fraud and was given a 12-month supervised community order.

The court heard that Wilshaw, who received £113-a-week income support, hatched the plot after claiming child tax credits for his partner's children, neither of whom was living at the couple's home in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset.

Peter Davey, 35, a father of seven, gave up work in administration nine years ago because he realised he would be better off on state handouts.

He and his wife Claire, 29, who is seven months pregnant, believe they deserve their £815-a-week benefit cheque and are open about feeling no guilt that they live at the expense of the taxpayer.

Their home, a semi-detached house on the Isle of Anglesey, is complete with 42 inch flat screen television, Sky TV at £50 a month, a computer and three expensive games consoles, as well as four mobile phones.

The family also run a Mercedes people carrier and an 11 seater minibus.

However, they still feel there is little to be grateful for.

Mrs Davey, who has never had a full-time job,: "It's hard. We can't afford holidays and I don't want my kids living on a council estate and struggling like I have.

"I don't feel bad about being subsidised by people who are working. I'm just working with the system that's there.

"If the government wants to give me money, I'm happy to take it. We get what we're entitled to. I don't put in anything because I don't pay taxes, but if I could work I would.

"We couldn't afford to care for our children without benefits, but as long as they have everything they need, I don't think I'm selfish."

Mr and Mrs Davey met 13 years ago in a pub and had their first child, Jessica, a year later.

They then went onto have Jade, ten, Jamie-Anne, eight, Harriet, six, Adele, four, the couple's only son Tie, three, and Mercedes, two.

The couple now receive weekly payments of £439 in income support, £87 in housing benefits, £99 child benefit, £18 council tax benefit.

That is on top of a carer's allowance of £53 and a disability living allowance of £119 to support their son who suffers with a skin disorder.

"It cost too much to carrying on working as we were actually better off unemployed," said Mr Davey.

The family still ensure they do not go without, splashing out on four presents for each child on their birthdays and £2,000 for family gifts at Christmas.

And they intend to expand their family by another seven children, bringing the total to 14.

"I've always wanted a big family – no one can tell me how many kids I can have whether I'm working or not," said Mrs Davey.

Their loud and drunken behaviour makes the lives of their neighbours a misery - and it is all being funded by state handouts of £20,000 a year.

Residents are petitioning to have Jane and Lee Houghton, their five youngest children and a grandson evicted.

But with a new bathroom and kitchen on its way, paid for by the council, and a house filled with numerous games consoles, computers and TVs they have no intention of moving.
Enlarge The Houghtons: Left to right, Chelsea, her son Dion, Lee, Summer, Jane, Chanelle and Emma

The Houghtons: Left to right, Chelsea, her son Dion, Lee, Summer, Jane, Chanelle and Emma

And Mr Houghton yesterday insisted they need more money.

The 42-year-old is paid £150 a month disability allowance because he has a 'personality disorder' which makes him 'kick off in crowds'. He has not worked since 1999 and says drinking alcohol helps him cope with his condition.

He has been threatened with an Asbo for violent behaviour as well as being drunk and disorderly and has 24 previous convictions.

The comfortable lifestyle of the Houghton family is funded by benefits including £640 income support, £212 carer's allowance a month as well as Mr Houghton's £150 disability allowance.

Their four-bedroom semi- detached house in Crawley, West Sussex, is paid for by housing benefit.

Father of 11 quits his £27,000 a year job to make more on benefits.

A teacher has given up work to stay at home with his wife and 11 children because he is better off living on benefits. The large part of his income is now job seekers allowance - even though he quit his job. In all Salim receives £29,096 a year in handouts for doing nothing and is planning to have a 12th child.

The family receive £19,000 a year job seekers allowance even though Salim is not looking for one. They get £6,600 child benefit, £2,496 in free school meals and £1000 council tax relief. Salim married his cousin Noreen who has never worked since marrying Salim. Salim said "this is what is great about Britain, in Pakistan the government does not look after you".

A SCROUNGER who fiddled £10,000 in benefits claiming she was a single parent was caught after appearing on WIFE SWAP with her fiancé. Mum-of-two Kelly Jones, 23, failed to tell the authorities that she had been living with her bus driver lover for 18 months. She illegally pocketed £4,976 in housing benefits, £3,614 in income support and £1,171 discount on her council tax bill. But she was caught out when she went on Channel 4's Wife Swap with Steve Jones who she married in April this year.

Their scam allowed them to drive around in Porsches and Mercedes, while the taxpayer paid their mortgages on a property portfolio worth £1.5million.But yesterday, justice finally caught up with this fraudulent family of eight. The swindle involved relatives putting in false claims for housing benefit of almost £170,000 which was used to pay off various mortgages.Shamini Kowridas, who was jailed for her part in a £168,000 benefits fraud scam. Sinniah Pathnmanathan was one of eight members of his family found guilty of benefit fraud Family fraud: Shamini Kowridas was sent to jail, while Sinniah Pathmanathan received a suspended sentence because of his ill health One relative would apply for a mortgage, often using false information, then rent the house to a family member. The tenant would hide the fact they were related to their landlord and claim housing benefit, which was funnelled straight into mortgage repayments.

The family even drew up bogus tenancy agreements to support the swindle.But after the local council was tipped off and began to investigate, the eight were sentenced to a total of 50 months in prison. At Harrow Crown Court, Judge Graham Arran told them: 'This was done for greed, and never for need. 'Every claim was dishonest from the outset, and I have no doubt the scam involved other fraudulent activity - mortgage fraud and other benefit fraud.' The swindle began in 1993 when Premkumar Pathmanathan, 46, and his brother-in-law Sittamplan Soundrasritharan, 51, secured a deal for a house in Clayton Avenue in Wembley, North London. Pathmanathan's father, Sinniah, 78, was installed as the fake tenant, and began claiming his bogus rent on benefits. Three years later, the family got a mortgage for the house next door, in the name of Pathmanathan and his brother Sivakumar, 46. Pathmanathan's estranged wife, Kalaivany Premkumar, 40, was installed as the pretend tenant, and she too began claiming illegal benefits which covered the mortgage.

Posing proudly before his own yacht in the harbour of a Mediterranean resort, John Watkinson appears the epitome of a successful and affluent businessman.

With an offshore account in Jersey and villas in Spain and Turkey, the company director and his wife enjoyed a millionaire lifestyle.

But for more than a decade Watkinson, 69, pleaded poverty and told officials he had just £20 to his name.
John Watkinson and his wife in front of their yacht in Turkey. He claimed £118,000 in benefits while declaring he had just £20 in the bank

Over a 13-year period he claimed almost £120,000 in housing and council tax benefit, income support and pension credits.

Yesterday he was behind bars after being jailed for two years when his benefits scam was uncovered by investigators.

Liverpool Crown Court heard Watkinson pretended he was out of work and needed benefits to pay for his rented accommodation. But in reality he had secretly set up a firm in Gibraltar to act as a front for all his dealings.

And three upmarket homes for which he claimed rent were actually wholly-owned by his company, Brooklyn Holdings Ltd.

Over the years Watkinson used this company to buy a series of top-of-the-range boats and luxury villas in Marbella and Turkey. He also splashed out on a £42,000 luxury yacht named Phil-A-Me after his 51-year-old wife Philamena.

David McLachlan, prosecuting, told the court that Watkinson fraudulently claimed more than £118,000 in housing and council tax benefit, income support and pension credits between April 1995 and August 2008.

During the fraud he claimed he lived in rented homes in the villages of Heswall, Noctorum, and Oxton in the Wirral, when he actually owned them all.

All the properties were bought and then sold by Brooklyn Holdings Ltd which left him free to pocket the housing benefit.

A BENEFITS cheat who claimed he was “virtually unable to walk” gave the game away by dancing the jitterbug on a night out.

Unemployed Terence Read, 61, fraudulently pocketed almost £20,000 in state handouts after insisting arthritis had left him wheelchair bound.

But he was filmed by investigators jiving and twisting the night away with a glamorous partner at a big band and rock and roll competition.

Dressed flamboyantly in pork-pie hat, bow tie, spats and long-jacket zoot suit, he was videoed executing a series of energetic moves including the jitterbug, Charleston and Lindy Hop as an audience roared their approval.

Dance judges at a Manchester leisure complex gave him glowing reviews as he and his companion completed a vigorous five minute high-kicking routine before taking a bow.

Read, who boasted that he was “an authority on all things swing”, started claiming benefits in 1995 because, he maintained, he suffered from arthritis and depression.

But after Department for Works and Pensions officials heard about his dancing hobby they started checking on his true condition, amid allegations that he had been overpaid up to £30,500 in disability benefits.

Neighbours of a jobless family put up in a £2.1million townhouse courtesy of the taxpayer last night called for them to be evicted.

They said it was a 'disgrace' that former bus conductor Abdi Nur, his wife and seven children could claim £2,000 a week in housing benefit to live in one of London's more exclusive neighbourhoods.

The family had previously been satisfied living in a smart five-bedroom house in Brent, North-West London, at a cost of £900 a week in benefits.

But last month, Mr Nur spotted a vacancy in nearby Notting Hill in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and was given permission by the council to upgrade.

Mr Nur, 42, and his wife Sayruq, 40,sought asylum in Britain in 1999 from Somalia, where he worked for the Red Cross.

He has worked in Britain as a bus conductor, but lost his job 18 months ago, and is now looking for jobs in 'warehouses or food production'.

The Nurs' new house is owned by a company based in the British Virgin Islands.

The average full-time wage in Britain is about £26,000. Some- one on such a salary pays about £4,000 a year in income tax. So it takes the entire income tax contributions of 25 people just to fund the rent of the Nur family. If the British Left cannot see that spending tax receipts in this way is morally indefensible and economically unsustainable there is no hope for it.

Under the loony system, the Nurs are FOUR TIMES better off claiming benefits than working. The average salary of an experienced London bus conductor is £16,000 a year.

Top that up with child benefit and they would receive a yearly income of £25,440. But with job-seekers' allowance and £96,000 benefits paying for the house, the family rake in £110,424 a year.

A jobless family of 11 on £42,000-a-year in benefits were handed a new £300,000 seven-bedroom house just three doors down from their old 'cramped' house.

Kevin and Sharron Bishop receive £3,500 of taxpayer's money every month for themselves and their nine children.

They had been living in a four-bedroom property but this weekend their neighbours watched in disbelief as the family carted their all belongings a few yards down the road to the new house.

A benefits claimant whose partner is expecting her 12th child boasted today that they 'have enough for a football team'.

Out-of-work Gary Bateman, 46, and Joanne Shepherd, 36, have been moved into a free five-bedroom house in which to raise their brood.

The £1,200-a-month rent on their home is covered by the more than £30,000 a year they claim from the taxpayer.

A BENEFITS scrounger with 10 children who claims £30,000

a year from the state was condemned by his own daughter yesterday.

Jessica Bateman, 18, said she was ashamed of her “lazy, useless” father and branded him “nothing more than a sperm donor”.

She was angered after hearing how father Gary, 46, and his partner – who is pregnant with her 12th child – were given a £300,000 five-bedroom house by council officials because he complained their old home was too small.

Shopworker Jessica, who is from a previous relationship of her father, has had little contact with him after he walked out on her mother when she was five. But she has learned that he spends up to £60 a time in fast-food restaurants while his council house is kitted out with the latest gadgets and flat-screen TVs.

A scrounging family-of-12 who rake in a staggering £95,000 year in benefits have been re-homed in a £1,000-a-week four-bedroom house - after trashing the last one.

Jobless Sam, 36, and Pete Smith, 40, have been given the new house in Bristol to house their brood.

The family were kicked out of their previous four-bedroom home in picturesque Bath after a £20,000 wrecking spree left it unfit for human habitation.

It was left in such a foul state that children's mattresses and walls were stained with human and animal excrement, floors were mouldy and rat droppings littered the floor.

But instead of being reprimanded, the couple were housed in a four-bedroom house in nearby Bristol - which they have already set about trashing.