Episode 3 Council House Crackdown

I'm Michelle Ackerley.

My parents both grew up on council estates, and as a family,

we understand the difference social housing can make to people's lives.

But across the UK, there's a chronic shortage

of council and housing association homes.

I know so many friends and so many people

that just literally don't have anywhere to live.

Adding to the crisis, some tenants are abusing the system,

holding on to properties they no longer need,

or even worse, unlawfully subletting them and coining in a small fortune.

Subletting social housing is wrong.

It's wrong. It's illegal and it's wrong.

So every day, we'll be with the housing investigators

as they crack down on those rogue tenants...

-County court bailiffs.

-DRILL WHIRS

..reclaim properties...

Anybody in?

..and give them to families in genuine need.

-All of those keys are yours.

-So...

Oh, don't, cos you'll start me off again.

This is Council House Crackdown.

Our reporter, property expert Luke Doonan,

also grew up on a council estate.

And for the last six months,

he's been working alongside dedicated housing investigators

who will stop at nothing to track down

every single tenant who's abusing the system.

Today, we join a team of fraud investigators

as one case of suspected subletting has them racing around East London.

We can get the police here to arrest you.

They've lied under caution,

so we'll just call the police now.

We find out how one woman's shocking use of someone's identity

helped to defraud Lambeth Council out of a tenancy

and claim over £150,000 in benefits...

She didn't flinch.

And that did leave me feeling fairly cold about the whole matter.

..and a council tenant who should've been living in Greenwich,

but was discovered 700 miles away.

We received an anonymous tip-off to say that

Mr Omar was now living in Norway.

Tenancy fraud costs the public purse an estimated £1.8 billion each year.

Housing just one family in temporary accommodation for a year

is around £18,000.

The Prevention Of Social Housing Fraud Act

was introduced in 2013,

giving social housing providers new powers

in their fight against tenancy fraud

and also making it a criminal offence.

Our first case involves a suspected unlawful subletting

which will take a simultaneous swoop by two sets of investigators

and the assistance of the police to resolve.

A married couple are the official tenants

at this two-bedroom flat in Poplar, East London.

But following a tip-off, investigations suggest that

they are actually living in this house,

less than a mile away, with their in-laws.

We have an allegation in from a neighbour that the tenants

were not living in their tenanted property.

Counter fraud investigator Avril Drummond

from housing association Poplar Harca

is leading the enquiry into the suspected unlawful sublet.

Avril is planning a dawn visit to the property

and has enlisted the help of freelance fraud manager Mike Frost

and his colleague Debbie Brazil.

We're going to hit two properties at the same time, simultaneous hits.

This is a copy of the picture of the tenants

so you know what they look like.

She needs to go to the housing association flat

to check who's there and go to the in-laws house

to see if her official tenants are living there.

She doesn't want them to be able to warn each other,

so the visits have to be done at the same time.

The wife is still linked financially to her mother's property,

who's also living in the borough,

hence the reason to do the simultaneous door knock.

So we'll be able to hit both properties at the same time.

Logistically, Debbie and I,

-we're going to go to the registered tenants' address.

-Yeah.

And, Mike, if you can go to the mother's property, please.

While Mike sets off to the in-laws' property,

Debbie and Avril take the short walk to the tenants' flat.

Once in position, they will confer to ensure that

they knock on the doors at exactly the same time.

It eliminates the opportunity for the tenants to phone any subtenants

if they are in the property or to communicate

to try and provide themselves with a false sort of scenario.

-ON PHONE:

-Hi.

Hiya, we're at the bottom of the flat. Are you at the address yet?

OK. Yeah, I am. I'm about to knock now.

All right, we're going to go up into the lift and wait outside

the property. I'll give you a call when we're up there.

Hiya. Are you outside?

Yeah, OK. OK. Bye-bye.

Bye. Yeah.

Give them a minute or two in case they've just...

I've just them woken up.

Open the door, please.

It looked like... To me, it looked like the tenant,

but I'll make sure now.

Over at the housing association flat, there's no response.

Poplar Harca. Can you open the door, please?

Avril can't do much more till she hears from Mike.

Because, at the moment, we don't know what's happened

at the other property.

So I don't want to leave a calling card

and possibly alert any subtenants who are living here.

So we won't leave a calling card at the moment.

We'll wait until we've heard from Mike to see what he's uncovered.

Could be we might have to come back later today

-and leave a calling card.

-Yeah.

-Hi.

-Evening, ma'am.

I'm Michael Frost from the fraud investigation team.

I need to speak to yourself, please.

Mike needs to find out who's living at this property

and, crucially, whether Avril's tenants are residing there.

How many people are living in that property?

It appears that Avril's tenants are indeed residing here.

They also admit to Mike that they do have people staying in their flat,

but they're family, they're only there for a visit

and that they're not paying rent.

Mike alerts Debbie.

We may need to go back up.

He's got the tenants at the property where he is,

-and he said there's definitely two people in there.

-Right, OK.

So he's going to give me a call in a second.

With this confirmation that someone is definitely staying in the flat,

Avril and Debbie need to get back up there

and question the occupants as soon as possible

before the official tenants can call them and brief them.

Well, he's found them living there, in the mother's property,

which is where we believe they're living in there with the children.

So we've reason to believe that our property's been sublet.

It's quite possibly why they haven't answered the door.

They've been told, instructed not to open the door to anybody.

I'm going to knock again on the door and request we...are given entry.

Poplar Harca. Can you open the door, please?

Hello. Avril from Poplar Harca.

SHE SPEAKS INDISTINGUISHABLY

OK, we're the landlords. We've come to do an audit of the property.

We're the landlord. OK?

We've come to do an audit of the property and verify who you are,

cos you're not our tenants, are you?

-You're not our tenants.

-No.

-We know where our tenants are.

So I'm coming in to do an audit, please.

Avril's keen to find out if they really are just visiting

or if they're actually subtenants and paying rent.

Myself and Debbie are going to be coming into the property

and speaking to you and whoever else is living in the property.

OK. Thank you.

Thank you.

Over at the in-laws' property,

Mike is trying to get the official tenants

to sign the flat back to the housing association.

Thank you.

All right.

OK. I've just finished inside there.

Obviously, I've come out the property.

There's no need for us to involve the police at this instance.

We may still do it at a later stage.

But what they've done is they've held their hands up

at the earliest opportunity

when I've presented the evidence to them.

They've signed a vacation notice which will require them

to hand the property back to us within 28 days.

It's a voluntary notice, termination notice

that they sign themselves.

They will then hand the property back to Poplar Harca.

There's enough people in this property,

and unfortunately, they've got two people that they claim to know,

which they don't believe they know

and I believe are false names living in our tenancy address,

which is, again, against the law.

Mike's been successful.

The tenants have signed a vacation notice,

which is a document saying that they'll hand their flat back

to the housing association.

We will issue notices to safeguard ourselves

and we will take criminal action if we deem it necessary.

Although the tenants have admitted

to having people staying in their housing association flat,

Mike still needs to establish if

they were unlawfully subletting it, which is a crime.

They've admitted that there was two people inside their property

that they should be living at. First of all, couldn't tell me their names

and then have given me names which I believe to be made up.

So I'm going to go check with Debbie.

The Prevention Of Social Housing Fraud Act of 2013

creates two criminal offences.

The first, a lesser charge,

where the tenant sublets their home without the intention to deceive

which carries a fine of up to £5,000.

And a second, more serious offence,

where the subletting is deliberate and dishonest.

This is punishable by a two-year jail sentence

and/or a fine of up to £50,000.

The court can also order the tenant to pay back any profits.

Avril and Debbie are interviewing

the occupants of the housing association flat.

They need to know whether they're paying rent to the official tenants.

I need some identification from you, please.

Passport or driving licence.

You're telling me you've got no identification here at all.

This investigation could result in criminal charges

and end up in court.

-I'm going to have to caution you, OK?

-OK.

You do not have to say anything,

but it may harm your defence if you do not mention,

when questioned, something which you later rely on in court.

Anything you do say may be taken down and given in evidence.

The woman comes up with a driving licence

which shows her address to be 11 miles away in Romford, Essex.

-A address in Romford.

-Lovely. Thank you very much.

The woman claims that the official tenant is her sister

and that she's just visiting.

Why are you...why are you here?

Er...

After a long pause, the woman claims that she's there on holiday.

Oh, it took you a long time to think of that answer, didn't it?

You're on a holiday from Romford?

And you're staying here in Poplar?

Suddenly, Debbie notices something unusual about one of the bedrooms.

Why is this door padlocked?

-Which door?

-This door here.

Why has this got a lock on it?

The woman claims that her sister has the key

and it's at another property.

She's refusing to give anything away and seems unsure of her answers.

Avril has to remind her of the severity of the situation.

You have now been cautioned that anything you say

can be given in evidence, OK?

So I'm asking you to tell us the truth and be honest with us, OK?

All right? OK?

Otherwise, we can get the police here to arrest you, OK?

All right? We don't want to do that. OK?

So I want you to be honest with my colleague about that door.

Who's got the key to that door?

The woman insists her sister's got the key.

She receives a call.

Debbie's concerned it's from the official tenant

and does not want them to confer.

-No, can you leave that, please?

-We're talking to you, please.

And you have been cautioned.

If you cannot talk to us, we will have you arrested

so we can ask you questions at the police station.

Avril and Debbie have been in the property for almost 15 minutes

with the woman when they find out that she isn't there alone.

Hello. Right, OK.

Now, I asked you who was in this property with you

and you said, "Me."

You made no mention of your husband at all.

OK? You understand so far?

Debbie doesn't believe the woman's story about being on holiday.

We believe you are living here. OK?

And your sister or your cousin, whoever she is,

is residing elsewhere.

We have officers with her now

who are getting the same information from her.

The man says that they've only been in the property for one week.

No, I don't think you're being very honest with us at all.

What date did you move into this property?

What date? Was it October?

After changing her story a couple of times,

the woman decides to come clean

and admits that she and her husband have been subletting the property.

It's a breakthrough.

Right. OK. All right. So you have been staying...

That's fine. We would rather you be honest with us.

-It's better for you to be honest.

-I'm not lying.

Debbie calls to update Mike.

Now the occupants of the flat have admitted they're paying rent,

it seems clear that there are good grounds

to question the official tenants about tenancy fraud.

We have just had them admit that

they're residing here and paying her rent.

-How much rent are they paying?

-'400.'

£400 a month.

And is it in cash or is it going direct into bank accounts?

'It's in cash.'

The official tenants are also receiving full housing benefit

which already covers the cost of their rent

to the housing association.

Debbie tells Mike the names of the occupants,

but they don't match the ones he was given earlier

by the official tenants

when they admitted to having people staying at their flat.

So he decides to question them again.

You guys stand off there.

I'm going to go and speak to these tenants

and I'm going to then call the police.

There's somebody else arriving at the address now.

'All right. Speak to you in a bit.'

-Cheers. Bye.

-'Bye-bye.'

They have lied, under caution as well,

to say that they're not renting the property out.

But unfortunately, the tenants inside the property

have admitted renting the property, so it's unlawful.

So we'll just call the police now

and get them to be arrested under the Fraud Act.

So we'll take it from there.

The conversation I just had with Mike at the other address

says they're not being cooperative.

So he's looking to possibly getting them arrested

-and interviewing them at the police station.

-OK. All right.

I need to speak to yourself and your wife again, please.

Mike confronts the official tenants

with the revelation from the other flat -

that the couple there were paying rent.

Mike leaves the house and calls the police.

I'm here to investigate the fraud under

the Prevention Of Social Housing Fraud Act.

They need to be arrested, so we can interview them under caution.

The police are going to be on their way.

And then they'll take whatever action

they deem necessary from there.

But before he can leave,

Mike spots the official tenants leaving the house.

I'll come and explain to you. The police are on their way,

so I suggest you might want to speak to the police.

The tenants inform Mike that they're on their way round to the property.

Mike alerts Avril and Debbie.

Hi there, Deb. So you know, I've called the police.

They're on their way here.

And he is believed that he might be making his way

down to you guys, so any issues or any slight threats whatsoever,

-just dial 999.

-OK. OK.

All right, we're nearly done here, anyway,

but I'll let you know when we're out.

Avril and Debbie wrap things up and advise the subtenants

on what to do if the official tenants arrive

and blame them for coming clean over the sublet.

If you have any problems at all, or they come back

or start threatening you for giving the information, just ring 999.

-Bye-bye.

-Bye-bye.

Avril and Debbie have enough evidence for now.

Mike updates the police.

The suspect's now left the address

and has told us that he is making his way back to the tenancy address,

so I'll probably require police assistance there as soon as I can.

I'm on my way there now.

Avril is keen to get the paperwork done so that

they can get this situation sorted as quickly as possible.

Later, the subtenants disappear from the flat,

and Avril's concerned.

-Are you OK?

-'Yeah, I'm OK.'

Can you let us in, please?

We're back here with the police,

but we're just here to make sure you're OK.

People putting their social housing back on the market as a letting

property, it's not really fair on the people that are all waiting.

People are in desperate need, people with families, young children

and they just can't get the houses they want, and it's not fair.

It's a horrible thing to do. Morally, it's just wrong.

It does make you feel uncomfortable.

I mean, it's basically sort of greed.

You know, people trying to make profit

out of the taxpayer, essentially.

Some people will go to incredible lengths to try

and get a social housing property they're not entitled to.

Our next case uncovers the story of a woman who illegally

obtained a council property by assuming another person's identity.

And in addition to the property, over a 17-year period,

she fraudulently claimed over £150,000 worth of benefits.

This is Mosunmola Akintomide.

In 1994, she and her child moved into this three-bedroom

council house in Brixton, South London.

By 1999, she had three children and was claiming housing

and council tax benefits.

But all was not as it seemed.

Luke went to see Ben Marshall, Senior Housing Fraud Investigator

at Lambeth Council, to find out about this shocking case.

Ben was first alerted to a possible problem with this tenant,

Miss Akintomide, three years ago.

So, Ben, tell me how this case first came to you.

A colleague in the Department for Work and Pensions phoned me

to say that he was investigating a name, Mosunmola Akintomide.

He was investigating it because this person was claiming tax

credits and other Department for Work and Pension benefits.

When the Department for Work and Pensions

looked into Miss Akintomide's identity details,

the only person they could find on file with that name was a baby,

born in London in 1965.

But that baby had died when it was only a few months old.

Ben wanted to find out more about his tenant

and why she seemed to be using the identity of a person

who was born 50 years ago and had died in infancy.

Well, what I really needed to do was to look in good

detail at the records that we held in the building, first of all.

So, going into our computer records, pulling up the files,

pulling up her tenancy agreement.

Miss Akintomide, using her fake ID, claimed for housing and benefits,

stating that she had three children.

But when Ben did a search on her home address, he found a fourth

child to be living there, but that child's mother had a different name.

I made enquiries around that child and I contacted the school,

for example. And they were unaware of siblings for the child.

And this child's mother was someone called Catherine Edward.

Further checks showed that Miss Akintomide

and Catherine Edward had the same mobile number

and were living at the same address.

Could they be one and the same person?

It was time to go and visit Mosunmola Akintomide.

So, in November 2013 I think it was,

we decided we'd gathered sufficient evidence,

and we went in with the police and found that there was a lady there.

She told us at the time, I think, that her name was Catherine Edward.

She sat very quietly, very sombre,

whilst we were looking through the property, and it was really

when we started to find all the documents, for example,

-the NHS letters in both names...

-Sure.

..all kinds of bank accounts in both

names, which really led me to think, "Well, we are right. Absolutely.

"She's one person using two identities."

Ben also found the birth certificates for her children.

Three of them were registered with

their mother's name of Mosunmola Akintomide,

the fourth, with the mother's name, Catherine Edward.

Is this person Catherine Edward then?

And she's been using the dead baby's...

-As it turns out, she claims to be Catherine Edward.

-Right.

-So...

-You can't guarantee she is or...?

-I cannot guarantee that she is.

But she claims to be Catherine Edward,

-a Nigerian national.

-Right.

Ben started to piece together the jigsaw.

It seemed that Catherine Edward was born in Nigeria

but assumed the identity of Mosunmola Akintomide,

who was born in the UK, in order to get a council house

and claim benefits.

I'm sitting here really shocked that anyone would use

the identity of a dead person, let alone a dead baby,

to come and fraudulently get a council flat from you guys.

And you've just mentioned she was claiming

-benefits for the whole period of time?

-Yeah, yeah.

And we added it up to £156,000.

-Gee, this is clearly not your average case, is it?

-No, no.

This is one of the most serious

and fairly complex cases that I've dealt with.

The woman was arrested and interviewed under caution.

Now, she didn't answer any of our questions.

She decided not to comment about them.

And that was frustrating because I had many questions.

I really wanted to know, what did the children call her?

Which birthday did she celebrate, for example?

Because she had two different dates of birth, by a couple of years.

In September 2014, Lambeth Council took Catherine Edward to court

on criminal charges.

It's difficult to necessarily accept anything that she says,

given the nature of what she's done.

She was prosecuted in the Crown Court.

To her credit, she went along

and she pleaded guilty to

several offences in relation to the matter.

She was given a suspended prison sentence of two years

and ordered to serve 200 hours' community service.

In fairness, this is one of the biggest,

if not THE biggest overpayment amount. £156,000 is so much money.

I mean, that's in part due to the fact that it's 17 years'

worth of fraud.

And the fact that it does involve not only using a false ID,

this was a dead baby.

When interviewing Edward at the police station,

they left the question about the baby's identity

until towards the end.

We said, "Did you know it was a dead baby's ID...identity?"

And she didn't flinch, and that did leave me

feeling fairly cold about the whole matter.

Following successful criminal prosecution against

Catherine Edward, Lambeth Council are today pursuing

a civil case against her.

Luke is heading over to Lambeth County Court with Ben.

So, Ben, in terms of the case, we're just about to go to court today.

Why are we here today?

Well, the criminal court case finished over a year ago now.

And she was found guilty of several counts of fraud

for more than £156,000. That was to do with the benefit

-that she claimed.

-OK.

Today is about the fact that she'd obtained

the tenancy by deception, effectively.

So, today, in simple terms, is all about getting the property back to

you guys, so you can then give it to someone who really needs it.

That's absolutely it, yeah.

It's a possession order hearing to establish exactly that.

Later, Luke's on the case to find out how the courts deal with this

shocking incidence of identity fraud.

Obviously, I think that kind of appropriating someone else's

identity for your own benefit and your own profit

is disgraceful and should definitely be stopped.

You know, it's another way of somebody making

a gain out of somebody else's misfortune, actually.

It's the kind of thing that undermines

the whole social housing system,

so with it being in crisis already, I think

there should be moves made to make that very difficult.

Illegal subletting is a particular problem in London due to the

bigger gap between social housing rent and market rent.

The average rent for a two-bedroom social housing property

in London is £114 per week.

The average cost of renting a London flat or house from a private

landlord would be around £350 per week.

A raid in a development on Edgeware Road, Central London,

found that 61% of housing benefit claimants were

subletting their properties instead of living in them.

Another raid on a housing block in Westminster revealed

that 75% were illegally subletting their properties.

Earlier, Avril and Debbie uncovered evidence of suspected

subletting in this block of flats.

The couple living here admitted that they were not the official

tenants who were in fact living at their in-laws' house nearby.

When the official tenants were interviewed by

fraud manager Mike Frost, they admitted that people were staying

in their flat but denied that they'd been unlawfully subletting.

They need to be arrested so we can interview them under caution.

But now the official tenants have gone back to their flat.

Mike has called the police as he still needs them to be arrested.

This will allow him to interview them

under the Prevention Of Social Housing Fraud Act.

-This is the tenancy address.

-Yeah.

Two people inside the tenancy address that have admitted

paying rent.

When Avril hears that the police have arrived,

she rushes back to join them and check on the subtenants.

-I've got statements from the subtenants so...

-All right.

They were fine, and we did say to them

-if you get any hassle, just phone 999.

-OK.

THEY KNOCK

But there's no answer, so Avril calls them.

Hi, it's Avril here.

-I'm back outside your door. Are you OK?

-'Yes, I'm OK.'

Can you let us in, please?

We're back here with the police,

but we're just here to make sure you're OK.

Can you just open the door, please?

But the official tenants got there first,

and the occupants are no longer at the property.

They tell Avril that one of the tenants turned up at the flat,

took their keys and made them leave.

Where are you now? Because we've got the police here with us

just to check you are OK.

Avril arranges to meet the couple at the office

to check that they're OK

and to take a statement about what's happened

while the police head off to look for the official tenants.

Well, we went back to the property because we feared the obvious,

that he was going to go back

and intimidate the subtenants that have now given us evidence.

And, well, he did do that, he's gone and kicked them out,

taking the keys so they've now been kicked out of their property.

So the police have now taken his details

and registration number and they will, if it pops on any of

the ANPR cameras, they will then effect an arrest,

a stop and arrest.

Back at the housing association office,

the female subtenant has arrived.

Do you want to come into the office?

-We just want to make sure you're OK.

-OK.

-Yeah?

A translator helps the officers to interview the women.

She's just had a phone call from the official tenants,

and they were not happy.

Did she say when you could get your stuff back?

She's saying, "Why are you telling them that you gave rent?"

Right, OK. Because you were being honest, that's why.

Have you got somewhere to go?

SHE TRANSLATES

The subtenants are able to go and stay with a relative,

but their belongings are still in the property.

The police need to be contacted to help get them back.

But before Mike can contact them, he gets a phone call.

The police have found and arrested the tenants.

That's not a problem.

Perfect, thank you.

All right, the police have just informed me that he's going to -

obviously they've been arrested - he's going

to get the keys from them, and then we'll arrange to let the

subtenants get their stuff back out of the property.

As the official tenants are taken to Bethnal Green Police Station,

Avril and Mike also head there to interview them under caution.

Meanwhile, Debbie and the police go back to the property with a

search warrant to look for evidence to try to prove the unlawful sublet.

Hello, police! Just make sure the premises is fine first, Deb.

Everyone needs a pen.

Kev, this room here is apparently set up by the tenant.

If Poplar HARCA turn up, she can go in... What is it?

It's a child's bedroom.

The reason they've done it, when Poplar HARCA

come round to audit the properties or do notified visits,

they would simply open the bedroom up.

There's children's toys here which would show that a child is resident.

If the child was resident, why would you lock the door?

Once the search has been carried out,

the subtenants are allowed to collect their belongings.

Can you make sure? Obviously, I don't want her

to have to come back here.

He was being quite aggressive.

-Sorry?

-The tenant of this property, he was being quite aggressive

and threw them out this morning. I don't want her to have to come back.

Can you make sure she gets everything out, for her safety?

-That's why I came to support her.

-Yeah.

Over at the police station, Avril and Mike have finished interviewing

the tenants who have now been released on bail.

I think it was really good teamwork today.

Obviously, we have to work very closely in partnership,

and this case today just showcases really why

we do the simultaneous door knock,

so it doesn't give people the chance to alert other people.

So that's why we hit both properties at the same time.

It does showcase how, you know, good teamwork

can really get a good result.

It has been a massive success for us.

Definitely, we didn't expect the outcome that we got.

We weren't expecting the drama and the police to be involved.

We were expecting it to be a normal handover and a peaceful handover.

Finding the subtenants in the property was a

good result for the team.

Getting signed statements from them is helping to build

the evidence against the tenants

and give Avril good grounds to get the property back.

The sweetest part of it for me is that we are actually going to be

able to house now a family that's sitting in temporary accommodation.

That's one of the reasons why I do this work and why I do this job.

Because I do like to see justice being served.

There are an awful lot of people that seem to think that

benefit fraud or housing fraud isn't a big deal. It doesn't matter.

Well, it really does matter.

It's a social issue that we all have to kind of take on board

and take a little bit more seriously now.

We have up to 20,000 people on a waiting list

in one borough in London.

That's 20,000 families in, you know,

dire housing circumstances, waiting to be rehoused.

So every single unit of accommodation,

we need to try and keep within our management

and ensure it's being used, you know, as it should be.

Avril has now served a notice to quit on the official tenants,

which she is pursuing through the civil courts.

Criminal cases cannot only be costly to the public purse,

but can also be a lengthy process,

and her priority is to get the flat back.

Recent government reports show that 68,560 households

are in temporary accommodation.

While families with children are being forced to

live in emergency housing, getting the property back is the priority.

Illegal subletting is obviously not desirable, not permissible.

It's taking very valuable resources from people who may

be on the waiting list for a long while and desperately need housing.

And people are actually abusing the system through illegally subletting.

It's for people who need it, not for people to make money off it.

It's illegal and it's wrong, obviously.

And, you know, so it's not right. But I mean, I think

the real issue is around rented property by

private landlords as well, not just around people with social housing.

In Cornwall, one man fraudulently attempted

to inherit his mother's council house.

He had altered documents

and falsely claimed he was living at the address in Bodmin.

He was given a two-year conditional discharge and...

Today, Luke is with Ben Marshall at Lambeth County Court to find out

if they're going to be awarded possession of a property.

This was illegally obtained by Catherine Edward,

using the identity of a person who had passed away as a baby.

Lambeth Council had already taken her to court, where she was given

a two-year suspended prison sentence and

200 hours' community service.

Although Catherine Edward didn't turn up today, the judge

ruled that the property should be taken away from the fraudster.

So, Ben, that was a really long time in court

-and I guess you're a happy man.

-Essentially, yeah.

It's a great result for me. It's a success.

My boss is going to be pretty happy.

The reality of it is that we've now got a date set in stone.

She's got to come out of the property.

We are going to get it turned around as quickly as possible.

And there's, as I've said to you all along, there's 20,000 people.

There's 1,600 in temporary accommodation.

One of those families is going to get a really nice house.

-It's one of the biggest cases you've had.

-Yeah.

And you've resolved it.

You must be really, really over the moon.

That must be a big personal achievement.

I am, I'm chuffed, actually. It's taken a long time.

It's sort of hard to really appreciate it immediately

-when you come out of court like this.

-Sure.

But it will sink in tonight.

I have absolutely worked on this... How many hours? I don't know.

-Many, many hours with other colleagues as well.

-Sure.

And it's good and right that the law, you know,

-wins out in the end.

-Indeed.

It's been a battle that's taken almost three years.

Four months after the possession hearing,

Lambeth can finally take the house back.

Guys, anyone in here? Court officer. Hello.

Catherine Edward and her children had already moved out,

before the locksmith

and County Court bailiffs officially gained possession of the house.

However, a lot of items were left in the property which will need to

be removed by the council before it can be cleaned and any repairs made.

Now back with Lambeth Council, the house will soon be ready to

be lived in by a deserving family currently on the waiting list.

What a great result for Lambeth Council.

They've just got back a three-bedroom family home

in a great location that can now be given to a family in genuine need.

This is another step in their fight against tenancy fraud.

Obviously, in any kind of system,

any kind of welfare system or anything that helps people

that are disadvantaged, there's going to be the odd person

that will abuse that system.

Obviously as a taxpayer myself, I feel offended by it, in a way.

I feel they're taking advantage of my hard work.

As a taxpayer, if I'm subsidising someone else to be able to make

their own business, effectively, then it doesn't really feel good.

Enfield Council, in London, were the first local authority to

successfully prosecute a tenant

for illegally subletting her property.

The woman was found to be subletting her flat in Edmonton, North London.

She had told the sub tenants that she was the owner of the property.

After pleading guilty to the subletting

and admitting charges in relation to benefit fraud...

..and was ordered to undertake 250 hours of unpaid work.

Since that first successful prosecution,

many more cases of subletting have been taken through the court.

But there's more than one way the law can be used to stop

social housing fraud, as our next case shows.

Nigel Brown is a fraud manager at the Royal Borough of Greenwich.

He was part of the team investigating the case of Arri Omar.

Mr Omar should have been living at this one-bedroom flat

in Abbey Wood, a suburban area of South East London.

But he was actually building a life for himself here, in Norway.

Mr Omar obtained the tenancy from us in 2009.

In late 2014, we received an anonymous tip-off to say that

Mr Omar was now living in Norway.

It was instantly thought at that point that the property,

maybe he'd abandoned it and left it completely empty.

The team contacted the Norwegian government for help.

They were very helpful at the embassy.

And they led us to identify that Mr Omar was living in Norway

with his wife and his children.

The Norwegian government confirmed that Mr Arri Omar

had emigrated to Norway in February 2014.

It was discovered that he was also working for a car care company

in Norway. But despite living and working over there,

Mr Omar still had links to the property in Greenwich.

Financial checks on the address appeared to show that Mr Omar

was still living at the property in our borough.

He had several bank accounts.

He had various other loans and what have you going on.

Under the Prevention Of Social Housing Fraud Act 2013,

the tenant's bank accounts could be requested.

We obtained his bank accounts,

and from there, we were able to see regular payments

coming in from another account of about £500 a month.

Now, that appeared to be rent.

In fact, when you analyse the accounts more,

one payment was actually called rent.

Therefore, it gave a good indication that maybe this was sublet.

We visited the property on a few occasions, but obtained no response.

The fraud team at the Royal Borough of Greenwich

wanted to speak to Arri Omar, but without alerting him to the

fact that they knew he was living abroad.

Their only option was to try to entice him back to the UK.

We thought the only way to deal with this matter would be to write

to Mr Omar at his home address

and ask him to meet us at the property

for a routine kind of residential visit.

A few days after, he rang us from a Norwegian number and arranged

another date more convenient to him for us to come and visit.

Arri Omar had agreed on a date for the council to go and visit him.

He was unaware, however, that they

knew that he was no longer living there.

He was also unaware that they would be arriving at the property

with the police.

This is where Mr Omar had his one-bedroom flat.

And on the 5th June, we turned up here with the police to meet him.

Mr Omar was surprised we'd attended with the police.

But nevertheless, a search of his premises took place.

The police arrested and charged Arri Omar

with fraud by false representation.

Powers under the Police And Criminal Evidence Act allowed them

to search the premises for evidence of the subletting

and for further proof that Mr Omar was indeed living in Norway.

Basically, they listed various things that they found

in the property, which were a holdall in the wardrobe that

Mr Omar placed in there, containing Norwegian travel documents,

his Norwegian currency.

There was a wallet containing credit cards from Norway

and his ones from the UK.

It was obvious that Mr Omar was not living at the property.

In the flat, we found possessions belonging to other people,

which included the people that were subletting from Mr Omar.

Also in his possession, we found some flight arrangements,

his boarding pass which showed that he had flown in the day

before just to meet us on the day.

The evidence against Arri Omar was stacking up.

Nigel's team made contact with the suspected subtenant,

who confirmed that he had been paying rent to Mr Omar.

Two weeks after the arrest,

Mr Omar turned up at the council offices and signed

a termination notice, giving the flat back to the

Royal Borough of Greenwich.

Arri Omar appeared at Bexley Magistrates Court

in October 2015, on one charge of benefit fraud under the

Social Security Administration Act.

He pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 16 weeks' imprisonment,

suspended for 12 months.

He was also ordered to pay back housing benefits that he'd received.

Mr Omar's now got himself a criminal record,

he's got to pay us our money back for the housing benefit fraud,

but more important than that,

we've got a lovely property back

for someone who actually deserves to have it.

For every tenancy cheat that's uncovered and every property

that's reclaimed, that's one less family on the waiting list.

With ever-improving investigation techniques

and the sheer determination of housing officers,

the walls are closing in on those abusing our social housing stock.