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.

Millions of families across the UK are struggling to find affordable housing.

So, this is my front room and my bedroom together.

Many are living in temporary or overcrowded conditions,

desperate for somewhere decent to live.

This is our room where we sleep and this is what we've got at the minute.

We can't really call it our home.

But some social housing tenants are abusing the system,

holding on to properties they no longer need.

When somebody applies for housing, you expect them to live in a property.

And when they don't, it does start to take the mickey.

Or even worse, making a small fortune by illegally subletting them.

He was charging beyond £1,500 a month.

He exploited this completely to his advantage.

So, I'm with housing investigators, cracking down on tenancy cheats...

-What a waste!

-If you want to commit tenancy fraud,

don't bother coming here.

..reclaiming properties.

I need to speak to you, please.

They've seen an opportunity and they think they're not going to get caught.

..and giving them to families in genuine need.

That's how a council house should be.

It should be loved and looked after.

This is Council House Crackdown.

Tonight, a house of horror -

the family home abandoned nearly two decades ago.

This could be given to someone who's in dire need of social housing, and

it's just been left to rot.

A couple claim homelessness to gain social housing,

whilst seeming to lead a champagne lifestyle.

It's really frustrating when you've got people telling lies

about their circumstances, especially when you know

there were genuine people out there that really needed that home.

Investigators uncover a coordinated attempt

to buy five precious social housing properties.

These five right-to-buy applicants had financial links to one another.

This raised our concerns that there was serious criminal activity

in these cases, such as money laundering.

When it comes to social housing,

family homes are often in really short supply.

In Wolverhampton, for example,

fewer than half of the 23,000 social housing properties have two or three bedrooms.

Making sure these properties are being put to the best possible use is vital.

This is Mkhululi Mpofu and his wife, Vanessa.

When they appealed to housing authorities for support with their young family,

they appeared the perfect match for one of Wolverhampton's precious

two-bedroom properties.

But their deception prompted Elaine Morgan

and her team at Wolverhampton Homes to bring their first ever prosecution for

housing tenancy fraud.

In Wolverhampton,

there are nearly 9,000 households actively seeking social housing.

This house here, it's a two-bedroom house, good size.

Back garden, off-road parking,

so, it's ideal for families.

Yes. Very sought-after area.

As fraud investigators for Wolverhampton Homes, Elaine and her colleague,

Louise Humphries, know just how difficult it can be for young families on

the social housing waiting list.

A lot of our applicants are very desperate for a home

and it's not very easy for people

to get onto the property ladder any more.

The demand for social housing is very great.

We deal with so many people who are desperate for housing

and have no other means of being able to, you know, to get housing,

either by buying it or renting privately,

because it's just not affordable for them.

With social housing, it's designed for people in need.

So it's not just something that should be available to people to

come along and say, you know, "I want that house, I fancy living there."

It should be for the people who genuinely need it.

And in 2011, when Wolverhampton Homes received a housing application

from Mkhululi and Vanessa Mpofu, the information indicated that this was one such family.

They claimed that they didn't have anywhere to live.

They were staying with friends

and they were sleeping on the floor with their child.

They said that they had no bedroom of their own.

And because of that they were given homeless priority.

So they were given emergency banding.

Emergency banding is a banding for people who really don't have anywhere to go.

We have to prioritise people who genuinely don't have a home.

They provided us with the proofs that we would require to check out before

we allocate a property.

So they provided bank statements at the address at which they claimed to

be living and wage slips from that address.

There was no reason to suspect there was anything untoward.

When a two-bedroom property in the Fordhouses area of Wolverhampton became available,

it looked perfect for this seemingly struggling young family.

Mkhululi and Vanessa Mpofu applied for it.

This area, as we're sort of driving around, you can see there's a lot of

green areas, places for kids to play, there's local shops, a school.

I suppose it is just ideal for families living here.

Because of the banding and the priority that they'd been given based on

what they told us, they were successful in bidding for the property.

And they were offered the house.

The apparently desperate circumstances surrounding the Mpofus' application

meant that they were awarded the property in the face of some tough competition.

The property that they bid for in particular,

I believe over 230 other applicants also applied for it,

which meant that obviously they got the property because of their

emergency banding.

For Wolverhampton Homes,

it seemed like a struggling young couple had been given

the essential support they needed to raise a family.

Yeah, I suppose, especially if there's children, as well,

and if they've never had a home or a house with a garden and they've got

somewhere to play,

and I think it's just great for them that they've got that opportunity.

Local authorities routinely carry out data checks on all social housing properties,

and just over a year into the Mpofus' tenancy,

investigators were alerted to something unusual.

And we received a match for this particular address.

The match indicated that the tenants themselves had actually been living

in another socially rented property out of the borough at the time

that they applied with us.

The social housing property that Mkhululi and Vanessa Mpofu

were already living in was ten miles away in Walsall.

It became clear to Elaine and her team that they needed to dig deeper

to uncover the truth about the Mpofus' application for housing.

Later...

It is sickening.

It just reinforces what we've always said -

there is no such thing as a typical fraudster.

Investigators learn the truth behind a shocking deception.

They had completely lied.

They were professional people.

They quite openly posted photographs of themselves abroad,

sipping champagne,

travelling to various countries and living a jet-set lifestyle.

Tenancy fraud is a serious matter.

If you're caught and prosecuted,

you'll end up with a criminal record and could face a fine

of up to £50,000, or even go to jail,

which makes it all the more surprising that some of the people

caught trying to cheat the system

are people who, frankly, should know better.

Our first case involves this woman - 26-year-old Kusheema Nurse.

She was studying law in Bristol

while at the same time breaking the law

by illegally subletting her council flat in London.

You would think for anyone studying that kind of subject that they would

know the difference between right and wrong?

That would be our expectation, yes.

The law student's unlawful actions began in April 2011,

shortly after she was allocated this one-bedroom flat in one of the most

densely populated parts of Brent in North London.

The council's fraud manager, Dave Verma,

headed up the team who uncovered the law student's unlawful activities.

Stonebridge is a mixed urban locality.

It's very near Central London.

The whole NW10 postcode in London is quite up and coming.

Social housing is in high demand in this part of London,

which made Kusheema Nurse one of the lucky few

to get a council flat here in such a prime location.

We're just turning on to the road now. The road is comprised of these

older terraced type properties,

which are now worth quite a bit of money

and they're very solid in build.

You'd never know that they were social housing, per se.

When Kusheema Nurse first approached Brent Council in 2008,

she stated she was in genuine need of housing

after a breakdown in the relationship with her mother.

Head of Housing Needs, Laurence Coker,

considered her application.

So in the first instance,

we referred her through to our mediation service

to try and reconcile the relationship with her mother

to prevent her from becoming homeless.

Unfortunately, that failed, so we continued to do our enquiries,

which included a home visit to the mother's address

to confirm the reasons why the mother was excluding

Miss Nurse from the family home.

The mother wasn't prepared to take her back

and because Miss Nurse was a young vulnerable person,

we accepted that main statutory duty to accommodate her.

She was classified as vulnerable because she was a young woman

with nowhere to live.

Kusheema Nurse was awarded the first floor one-bed flat in August 2010.

She now had a roof over her head and for the next few years,

everything seemed in order.

The rent was paid promptly and there were no problems

with the tenancy.

From that time going forward,

the council was very much of the opinion that she was resident there.

There was nothing to indicate she wasn't.

Then, three and a half years later in February 2014,

there was a serious fire at the property.

Station manager Pam Oparaocha was among those who attended the scene.

So, as we were coming down the road,

we could see the smoke issuing from the building.

Like thick black smoke,

so we knew it was a developed fire

and probably had been going on for some time.

But Kusheema Nurse, the official tenant, wasn't in the property.

Firefighters found another woman

lying unconscious on the living room floor.

They brought her down the stairs and brought her to street level.

Initially, our crews were working on her, trying to revive her.

We thought that she wasn't going to live.

She was lifeless when she came out of the building,

and eventually she started to breathe, she started to come round.

Very lucky to get out.

Very, very lucky.

The woman who was rescued from the fire had been visiting a man

who was apparently was subletting the flat from Kusheema Nurse.

The break-out of this fire is what's led to a lot of the problems

occurring for Miss Nurse.

It was after the fire that Miss Nurse attended the property

with some of her friends and was very keen

for the subtenant to move out very quickly.

The subtenant decided to go to Brent Council

and make a shock confession.

Surprisingly, a gentleman turned up at our buildings here,

claiming that he was a subtenant

and that he wanted to blow the whistle

on the fact that he was the subtenant

and give us a statement accordingly.

Investigators were alarmed by what he had to say about

Kusheema Nurse's three and a half year tenancy.

The subtenant was very clear in what he told us about Miss Nurse.

Firstly, that she was not living at the property and that soon after

being awarded the property by Brent,

she'd actually moved to Bristol to do a degree in law.

If what the man had told investigators was true,

Kusheema Nurse was acting unlawfully.

Later - Brent Council uncover the shocking truth

about Kusheema Nurse's double life.

She was spending her money here.

There was a multitude of transactions showing her regularly

spending money here, but more so, she was working here.

Earlier, we learned how Mkhululi and Vanessa Mpofu

were awarded a two-bedroom property by Wolverhampton Homes

after claiming to be homeless and sleeping on a friend's floor.

They said that they had no bedroom of their own,

and because of that they were given homeless priority.

So they were given emergency banding.

When a routine data match revealed the couple were already registered

at an address ten miles away in Walsall,

tenancy fraud officers needed to investigate further.

They re-examined documents,

including a questionnaire the couple filled out when they applied for the house.

One of the requirements on that questionnaire is to provide

ten years' worth of addresses, previous addresses.

We looked at the ten years' worth of addresses they provided

and there were so many of them, they had to continue on a blank sheet.

At first glance, it appeared that the couple had comprehensively

listed every property they'd lived in for the past decade.

But, tellingly, the address in Walsall was missing.

Either the council's database was inaccurate,

or Mkhululi and Vanessa Mpofu had withheld the truth.

A quick check with the housing association in Walsall confirmed their suspicions.

They confirmed that they'd actually had the tendency with them for quite

a while. And they were living there, not in Wolverhampton,

where they claimed to be living.

Once we discovered that they'd already had a tenancy in another borough,

we contacted the housing association who they were the tenants of and

asked if there was any particular reason as to why they couldn't have

lived at that property.

The housing association confirmed that there was no legitimate reason

why the couple couldn't remain in Walsall.

This was a clear case of tenancy fraud.

They obviously knew if they told us they already had a social housing

property, we wouldn't have looked at them as a priority case.

So they deliberately withheld the information.

When investigators dug deeper,

they began to suspect the couple weren't exactly in need of social housing.

We investigated their circumstances and we found out that they both worked for the NHS.

I believe that the one partner also wrote stories for the media.

So they had decent jobs.

It just reinforces what we've always said -

there is no such thing as a typical fraudster.

We've had people from all walks of life that we've investigated for

housing tenancy fraud.

We've had older people, professional people,

people that you just wouldn't expect would do something like that.

Because the couple had already withheld vital information

on their tenancy application,

investigators decided to take an even closer look at the Mpofus.

We started to look at them

on any social media sites we could find that they were on and just

generally have a look at their lifestyle.

What they saw online took the investigation team

completely by surprise.

Looking at their social media profiles, it showed them,

they seemed to be travelling a lot, had a decent car.

They didn't seem to be lacking in funds.

They quite openly posted photographs of themselves abroad,

sipping champagne,

travelling to various countries

and living a jet-set lifestyle.

It was completely at odds with their application for social housing.

They claimed they were living in a property in Wolverhampton -

that was a complete lie.

They claimed they were

overcrowded, sleeping on the floor with their family -

that was a complete lie.

They left off the actual address where they were living.

The bank statements they provided were false and the wage slips they

provided were false.

It's really frustrating when you've got people telling lies about their

circumstances, especially when you know there were genuine people out

there that really needed that home,

and they cheated their way to get it.

Investigators took action.

On November 12th 2013,

Mkhululi and Vanessa Mpofu appeared before Wolverhampton magistrates,

accused of tenancy fraud.

It was very significant for us.

It was the first prosecution case we had ever dealt with.

So it was a big learning curve for us about how we had to go about

obtaining the evidence,

putting the evidence together and going forward to Magistrates' Court.

The couple pleaded guilty to offences under the Fraud Act.

Both were given community orders,

and Mr Mpofu was sentenced to 120 hours' unpaid work.

The couple handed the keys back.

We felt it was important to deal with it in this case,

to make an example

that we just won't tolerate people committing housing tenancy fraud.

The property has been re-let to another family on the social housing waiting list.

The family that was rehoused there, they, too, were in an emergency need

for that property and it was a genuine case,

and we believe that the family are very happy in their new home.

When I look at the photographs in cases like this one,

it makes me feel a sense of satisfaction that the job we're doing is

designed to prevent this from happening and that we will do something and

we will take tenancy fraud very seriously.

Our next case involves businessman Kandappillai Jenopan.

He claimed to be living in overcrowded conditions with his family.

After a nine-year wait, he was allocated a council flat.

But what Mr Jenopan didn't mention was that since applying for his council flat,

he'd been busy building up an impressive property portfolio

180 miles north in Scunthorpe...

..where he owned this three-bedroomed detached property,

this two-bed terrace,

this three-bed terraced house...

Oh, and also this three-bedroom detached property.

Very nice, too.

Greenwich, South East London.

In this highly sought after borough,

there are over 16,000 people waiting to be housed,

while around 250 new applicants join the queue every month,

so it's vital for the council to tackle those tenancy cheats.

Kandappillai Jenopan registered for council housing in the year 2000.

Surprisingly, in 2012,

after having been a tenant for only three years,

out of the blue, he handed in the keys and gave the property back.

After waiting so long, this sudden change of heart aroused suspicions,

so the Royal Borough of Greenwich fraud team ran some financial checks.

And we found fairly instantly that he had links to Scunthorpe area.

We also found that he had business links to Scunthorpe in the fact that

he owned a franchise, or ran a franchise, of petrol garages in that area.

What we had to do was look at Mr Jenopan's original application.

That was a long time ago, in 2000.

And this is what he wrote.

"I have been living with my brother. It's a one-bedroom flat.

"He's got married and I am sleeping visiting hall. It is uncomfortable

"for me and them. Also I am going college. It's affecting my studies

"as well."

So basically he's saying he's overcrowded.

When he accepted his council property,

Mr Jenopan had to sign a tenancy agreement stating that his situation hadn't changed.

Here's the tenancy here.

This is important because this is a date when on 7th May 2009,

he signed this form to say that he didn't have anywhere else to live

and that he had no changes to his circumstances.

I mean, nine years have elapsed since he put his housing application in,

so people's circumstances do change.

In May 2009, he declared to us that his circumstances were still the same,

that he had no other accommodation to live in,

that he was still living with his relatives in the property in Greenwich,

but we found that wasn't true.

Armed with the information the fraud team had gathered

about his connections to the Scunthorpe area,

they contacted North Lincolnshire Council to see what

information they held on Mr Jenopan.

Most councils do talk to each other.

We would send, quite routinely, a Data Protection Act inquiry

to another council and they would normally respond pretty quickly back.

In North Lincolnshire, Hannah Leigh Watson is the fraud investigator who

dealt with the case.

-Hi, there!

-Hi, nice to meet you.

-Lovely to meet you, I'm Michelle.

-Hi, this way.

-Thanks.

Back in July last year,

we were contacted by an investigator at the Royal Greenwich regarding

information we held on Mr Jenopan.

How did you kind of track down the details?

What kind of things do you need to go through in order to build up the evidence?

We checked through all the council records we held, which was using council tax documentation,

and if he had ever claimed any housing benefits or council tax reduction at a point.

We also used our electoral roll,

just to see who was registered where.

So the council tax records showed that Mr Jenopan was in fact living up here,

as well as having the council property down south.

It turned out he had four properties in this authority,

which he was renting out to other people.

Oh, my gosh. So at the time when he was allocated a council property

down in Greenwich, he had four properties up here in Scunthorpe.

-I mean, that is pretty damning, isn't it?

-It is, yes.

North Lincolnshire Council records proved beyond doubt that he had amassed

a varied portfolio of properties in the area

and that he was also living in one of them.

I've been in the council 20 years now and in the last few years,

there's so much more sharing with data than there was ever before.

And it's through the sharing of information that you find out more about people.

I mean, in this case,

North Lincolnshire helped us because they were unable to confirm to us

that Mr Jenopan had been living up there.

North Lincolnshire Council had concrete evidence that Mr Jenopan and his wife

had been living in the area since May 2010,

precisely the time he was supposed to be living in his council flat

180 miles away in Greenwich.

Indeed, it wasn't just a record, it was something that he had physically

rung up about himself, and they had a record of that,

to say that he was living up there.

Within a year of having his property,

evidence certainly suggested that Mr Jenopan hadn't moved into our address at all.

If he did ever live out our address in Greenwich,

he was only there for a year.

It's very clear he's made a false statement here,

he already owned four houses and had a perfect opportunity to say,

"Look, hang on, I shouldn't be taking this tenancy and depriving someone else,

"I don't want it because I've got four other places to go and live in."

I mean, the audacity of the person is unbelievable,

to be honest with you.

Before accepting a social housing property,

tenants have to tell the council of any change in circumstance that may

affect their housing application, such as getting married,

having children or becoming a property owner.

In this case, the tenant had been lying about his circumstances,

and there was more.

There was many names on the address. Don't forget, this is a one-bedroom flat.

You'd only normally expect to see one person registered for council tax there.

But there were several on the credit checks, which was implying that he had rented it out.

Later, the investigators confront the fraudster.

There was no way he was going to escape a summons from us for a prosecution.

Earlier, we met Kusheema Nurse,

who'd been allocated a one-bedroom property in London by Brent Council

when she declared herself homeless in 2008.

Investigators were then approached by the man

who was unlawfully renting the flat from her.

The subtenant was very clear in what he told us about Miss Nurse.

Firstly, that she was not living at the property

and that, soon after being awarded the property by Brent,

she'd actually moved to Bristol to do a degree in law.

So you've got a student here, studying law, pretty intense degree,

prestigious university,

you would think if anyone studying that kind of subject,

that they would know the difference between right and wrong.

Well, that would be our expectation, yes.

Counter fraud manager Dave Verma immediately began an investigation.

He was able to access bank statements

showing Kusheema Nurse's spending habits.

I'm sure that's extremely useful for a case like this.

What did you discover from looking at those statements?

She was spending her money here.

There was a multitude of transactions

showing her regularly spending money here,

but more so, she was working here.

We discovered she was very much living her life here in Bristol.

Back at Brent Council offices,

Dave showed me the evidence he'd compiled.

So, we're seeing all kinds of payments being made in Bristol.

And secondly, it shows salary payments

for a nightclub in Bristol...

..and also that she has various transactions

showing that she is living in Bristol.

Brent Council contacted the nightclub

to confirm she'd been working there.

This is a letter that we obtained from her employer in Bristol.

This is from a nightclub

and this confirms her employment, that it started in June 2010

and that they hold an address for her on file, which is in Bristol.

This showed she'd been working in Bristol for more than 18 months

at the same time that she had her council tenancy in London.

From piecing all this together,

it's pretty clear that she's not living in London and that, you know,

a job working in a nightclub, it's late nights.

Well, clearly. That was confirmed to us by her employers

that she was often finishing in the early hours.

It's not easy to be coming back and forth to London

if you're working in a nightclub late at night.

Well, it's completely implausible.

With a university degree in law going on at the same time,

-it would be implausible.

-It just doesn't make sense, does it?

No, not at all.

Investigators were convinced that whilst studying law

and working in Bristol,

Kusheema Nurse couldn't have been using her flat in Brent

as her main place of residence.

At the time of the investigation in 2014,

Brent Council had more than 3,000 households

living in temporary accommodation.

This made it imperative for them

to reclaim their flat from Kusheema Nurse as quickly as possible.

She was called in for an interview under caution.

At the interview, Miss Nurse decided to give

what we call a no comment interview.

Her demeanour at the start of the interview was somewhat confident

and she seemed very happy to give a no comment interview.

However as the interview progressed,

it appeared that she was becoming more and more nervous

as she was learning the amount of evidence

that had been gained about her.

In my personal opinion, someone who is studying law,

one would hope that one would know the legal system and that the weight

of evidence was definitely stacked against her in this instance.

In August 2016, Kusheema Nurse appeared before Harrow Crown Court.

Miss Nurse decided to go with a not guilty plea,

where she gave explanations that the subtenant was just a person

decorating for her,

that she was actually resident at the flat in London

whilst undertaking her degree.

She didn't divert from that at all.

She was very, very stalwart that that was the case.

The court didn't believe her claims

that she was commuting between London and Bristol

and found Kusheema Nurse guilty of offences

under the Prevention of Social Housing Fraud Act of 2013

and the Fraud Act of 2006.

She was sentenced to 130 hours' community service,

deferred for three months so she could complete her law exams.

The stark fact is, across the UK,

there's not enough social housing to meet demand,

so councils will often put people in temporary accommodation while they

wait for a suitable property to become available.

But sometimes that wait can be a long one.

Meet single mum Justine.

She moved into temporary accommodation

with her 15-year-old daughter, Angelina, 1.5 years ago.

Yes, so this is my front room and my bedroom together.

It's not ideal because obviously my daughter and myself are quite aware

that I'm sleeping in the front room,

whereas it being a front room and my daughter feels very sort of,

and myself, a little bit embarrassed.

Justine and her daughter became homeless in 2015,

and they've been on Wandsworth Council's housing list ever since.

With two-bedroom properties in short supply,

as emergency aid they were offered a temporary one-bedroom flat and

they've been here ever since.

But even this costs £675 a month and Justine works full-time,

earning the minimum wage, in an attempt to make ends meet.

When I get my wages, which will roughly be about £800 a month,

£123 has to go on your Oyster card for travelling on the trains.

You might have your telly, food, clothes, dinner money for Angelina.

So there's not really much left but,

you know, living in London, everything is expensive.

Across the capital, there are more than 50,000 homeless families living

in emergency housing such as hostels and B&Bs.

Many London councils are relocating homeless families outside the capital.

It's a controversial policy.

But for Justine, living in London with her daughter, Angelina,

is proving to be unsustainable.

She's desperate to find a solution and has signed up with

Homefinder UK, a non-profit company that matches people with social housing properties

in other parts of the country.

A lady phoned me up and she showed me lots of lovely properties outside

the borough like Liverpool, Manchester, Middleton,

and she was extremely polite and she was very nice and it gave me

a lot of hope, and the door was not closed.

I felt like there is another route apart from being in this,

even though it is a big step to take.

And it is a big step.

Justine was born and bred in London and the prospect of uprooting her

daughter from school in search of a better quality of life

is a daunting one, but she feels she's got no choice.

I mean, the rent. Look at the rent.

Look at the rent here.

£97.62, plus you get your big garden.

You are not going to get that in Croydon.

The good thing is your wages would remain the same out of London so the

properties would be affordable and they are not going to put you in

that position of putting you in properties that you can't afford.

And they will put you in places where you can manage,

so that takes a big weight off of your shoulders.

Justine's HomeFindings search is in its early days but she has

high hopes of finding a suitable property soon.

Earlier, we heard about businessman Kandappillai Jenopan,

who claimed to be a struggling single man

living in a council flat provided by the Royal Borough of Greenwich,

but the reality was he'd built up a sizable property portfolio

180 miles north in Scunthorpe.

Mr Jenopan owned four houses in total.

He lived in one with his family

and the other three properties he rented out.

After many months,

Greenwich Council's fraud team had built up a cast-iron case.

Investigator Karen Evans headed North

to interview Kandappillai Jenopan

at North Lincolnshire Council offices.

It's not necessarily an arrestable offence that has been committed,

so it's not like a police interview under caution.

You know, you invite somebody in for interview,

they have no obligation to attend or not.

So you try as best you can to get them in for interview and that's

exactly what we did.

Kandappillai Jenopan did attend the interview and Karen was able to

put the fraud team's findings to him.

After showing him the evidence that we had, all the land registries,

all of the, erm, or some of the mortgage applications,

proof of him registering himself as liable for council tax at those

properties sometimes,

proof of him renting them out to various tenants over the years,

the evidence was conclusive.

I think he realised that.

Kandappillai Jenopan admitted owning four properties,

but claimed he was renting them all out

and not living in any of them himself.

Mr Jenopan's quite a successful businessman, from what we know.

He has numerous franchises in Scunthorpe.

And he was employing people that he would put into his houses

in Scunthorpe and occasionally popping back to London.

That was his story.

I think he was playing on the naivete side of things but I think he most

probably was aware that if he was to stick to that story,

that he didn't realise he should tell us about the property ownership,

that if he maintained that he lived at the property with us, that maybe the case would go away.

But that clearly wasn't the case.

Our evidence we had on this case was overwhelming and there was no way he

was going to escape a summons from us for a prosecution.

The evidence provided by North Lincolnshire Council was all the proof that

Nigel and the team needed.

Ultimately, he had deprived someone in genuine need for a period of

three years of a very nice flat in the Greenwich area.

A nice one-bedroomed that someone else could have had.

It was just a no-brainer really that there was no other way than a

prosecution for Mr Jenopan.

In October 2016, Mr Jenopan pleaded guilty to two offences

under the Fraud Act.

The matter was passed to Crown Court for sentencing.

To admit his guilt at court proved our case that he had been living in

Scunthorpe almost the whole period of time.

Two months later, Mr Jenopan received a 20-month prison sentence,

suspended for two years,

120 hours of community service and he was ordered to compensate the

council for their financial losses -

a total of more than £29,000.

How that's worked out is for the three years that Mr Jenopan

deprived us of the use of our property,

we've had to house somebody else in a one-bedroom property

at a temporary accommodation cost,

so we calculate the amount of money that he's defrauded from us

in that respect and cost us and the judge awarded us £29,000.

He told him that by Christmas, only a month's time,

he had to pay £10,000 to us.

And then the remainder's being paid now by £650 per month.

I mean, to see somebody be ordered to pay back money to us is great

satisfaction from the council's point of view.

Not only can we then use that money back for the homeless people in the

borough, and maybe to rehouse people in temporary accommodation to offset

some of our very high costs that we pay, but the good thing is,

it would be a real lesson to Mr Jenopan.

A two-year suspended sentence for some people would be, well,

"I got away with it."

But to actually have to pay £29,000, to me, isn't getting away with it.

That's a lot of money that anybody would have to find.

And I'm sure that hurt him.

Kandappillai Jenopan has so far paid back almost £12,500.

If he fails to pay the full amount, the Royal Borough of Greenwich

will force the sale of his property to settle his debt.

The Right to Buy scheme is intended to help tenants

take their first step onto the property ladder,

but the scheme is also being increasingly targeted by fraudsters

attracted to the huge discounts on offer.

In fact, in the last 12 months,

the number of investigations into Right to Buy fraud

has increased by 400%.

Our next case involves a co-ordinated attempt by a group

of five young men to buy up five social housing properties.

We were thinking, "This is not just your average Right to Buy attempt,

"Right to Buy fraud attempt.

"This is something a bit more sinister than that."

Oxford, the city of dreaming spires, with its stunning architecture,

history, culture and, of course, its world-famous university.

Here, as in other cities across the UK,

Right to Buy fraud is a growing problem.

Under Oxford's Right to Buy scheme,

tenants can buy their social housing property at a knock-down price,

but only if they're eligible.

A Right to Buy applicant...

Because there's a huge financial loss, essentially, to the council,

we have a duty to ensure that people are living at that address

they are entitled to their Right to Buy,

there's no money laundering involved

and no other fraud that we should be concerned about.

Here in Oxford, every Right to Buy application is thoroughly checked

and every document scanned.

-Hi, Kate. Lovely to meet you.

-Nice to meet you.

-Shall we go through?

-Yeah.

Kate Southey is an intelligence officer at Oxford City Council.

This council isn't just looking at specific cases.

You are scanning across the board, aren't you?

-Absolutely.

-You're looking at every single application?

Absolutely everybody, yes.

Even the most innocuous-looking application could be fraudulent

and we just think it is best practice to look at every single one

and find the ones that we do want to investigate further.

The policy seems to work -

over 20% of Oxford's Right to Buy applications

are blocked or withdrawn.

So, what sort of tenants would raise suspicions when you're looking

at these applications for Right to Buy?

Either the very elderly or the very young applicants.

We expect most applications to come from working-age tenants.

And what is it about if you got an application through from, you know,

an 80-year-old man, what is it that makes you think something's

-not quite right?

-If a tenant is elderly and they've lived in their

council property for many years perfectly happily,

you do have to question why, all of a sudden,

towards the end of their life, they would want to do that.

So, we explore the possibility that there's a younger relative

who may be seeking to gain financially from that property.

And on the reverse side of that, what about with the very young?

What raises alarm bells there?

The biggest red flag there would be, how could they afford it?

Oxford's a very expensive place to live,

even with a Right to Buy discount.

If you've not been in the workplace very long,

how can you afford a deposit and how can you afford

ongoing mortgage payments, and where is the money coming from?

The council's rigorous vetting procedures were put

to the test when two separate Right to Buy applications

were submitted within a few days of each other in June 2015,

followed by three more in the months that followed.

One of them landed on Kate's desk.

There are three of us in the intelligence team

and each of us noticed that we had cases that were very, very similar.

We had five gentlemen, who were all of the same nationality,

all from a similar area,

who were all suddenly applying for their council houses.

Fellow intelligence officer Tarryn Spruyt looked into one

of the applications and suspected the tenant wasn't even living

in the property, and therefore had no right to buy it.

Neighbours hadn't seen him for months.

He was thought to be now a student in London.

So, when my colleague noticed that my tenant matched those of

her applications, we realised that we were on to something bigger.

The five Right to Buy applications had some startling similarities.

All the applicants were Eastern European,

they all entered the UK as unaccompanied minors,

and all were now aged between 23 and 30.

We collectively decided to write to all of our applicants,

as we would with our normal due diligence process.

So, we asked for their wage slips, their bank statements,

further proof of their address,

things like that, really, to try and further assess their applications.

While they waited for a response,

investigators started looking into the backgrounds

of the five applicants.

We first investigated all of them as thoroughly as we could

and we gave an enhanced look to all of these.

So, that included internet searches, social media history,

going back to look at their educational history,

and we found that some had been at university together

and had obviously known each other a long time.

The five applicants responded to the council's request for

more information by providing identity documents and wage slips.

Four of them were in relatively low-paid part-time jobs.

One was self-employed.

Intelligence officers wanted to know more about where they were getting

their funds from to buy the properties.

I've been living in Oxford myself for five years,

my partner and I both work full-time and we're still very far from being

able to afford our first home together.

In this situation, our applicants were quite young,

they were working part-time, some of them were still students,

so had a relatively low income,

yet were still applying for the right to buy their council home.

The connections between the five men run even deeper.

Some of them were registered to vote at one another's addresses.

They were listed of next of kins and as key-holders, as well,

which raised our suspicions further

that there was a stronger connection here.

If fraud investigations were to block these applications,

they needed more solid evidence.

At this stage, it was really frustrating that, despite

the hard work that we'd put into making these connections

and the suspicions that we had that there wasn't something quite right,

it still wasn't enough to prevent them from buying their council home.

What we really needed was some hard evidence

as to how they were going to fund the purchase

and whether or not they were actually living

in their council properties.

So far, the men had not provided the investigators

with any bank statements or proof of funds,

and that in itself was cause for concern.

The people that genuinely want to buy their houses will send the

information back and they've all laid it out for you

and they've given you their mobile number and their e-mail address.

And then there are the ones that will fill in half of the form,

not tick all the boxes,

send you a little bit of evidence to keep the process rolling,

but not quite enough.

With strong links between the five applicants and question marks around

where the money was coming from,

this was starting to look like an organised and coordinated attempt to

profit from Oxford's precious social housing stock.

Scott Warner is Oxford City Council's head of fraud.

I mean, these common traits, right at the outset,

rang massive alarm bells. What are you thinking at this stage?

They did. Well, we were thinking, "This is not just your average

"Right to Buy attempt, Right to Buy fraud attempt.

"This is something a bit more sinister than that."

Talk me through the types of checks that you do to really bolster

the evidence in this kind of case.

So, we ask about the source of funding, primarily,

and that's an anti-money laundering measure to make sure

that the funds being used to purchase the property

are not from illegitimate or criminal origins.

Later, mysterious cash transfers heighten concerns...

Our suspect received over £28,000 into his account,

taking his balance up to over 40,000.

..as the full scale of the deception is exposed.

We've seen lots of high-value transfers between

each of the individuals. Now, I'm not talking £300 or £400.

-This is like £50,000 to £60,000 transfers at any one time.

-Really?

If you have a social housing property,

it's supposed to be your sole and principal home,

and if you're going to be away for a prolonged period,

you're expected to notify the council. But, as we'll see,

tenants aren't always as forthcoming as they might be.

This is Friar Park, four miles south of Walsall in the West Midlands,

and it was here that tenancy fraud investigators

witnessed a shocking abuse of social housing that spanned

nearly two decades and led to evidence of animal cruelty.

-That must have been a pretty awful day.

-Yeah, it was disgusting.

It was one of the worst visits I've ever been on.

The story began in February 2015,

when lead investigator Lee O'Malley began to have concerns regarding one

of Sandwell Council's three-bedroom family properties.

So, Lee, this is the property. Tell me a bit more about it.

What kind of person is it suitable for?

It's suitable for a family. It's a three-bed property.

Nice, big living room, decent-sized kitchen, bathroom,

and the garden's huge, as well.

Over 1,700 people have been listed as homeless in Sandwell over the

last three years. Ensuring council properties are awarded to those in

greatest need is a permanent challenge for

Sandwell Council leader Steve Eling.

But we've got, every day, ordinary families who are having difficulty

accessing affordable, decent housing as their permanent home,

and the housing crisis that we've got in the country

has worsened that situation.

When authorities received a tip-off concerning the long-standing tenant

of the property in Friar Park, they took a closer look.

We started our investigation as it had been reported

the lady in question wasn't living at her address.

Authorities were concerned.

If the woman wasn't living at the property, where was she?

Investigators hit the streets to find out the truth.

So, you spoke to the neighbours. What did they tell you?

They did tell us that the neighbour in question,

-she hadn't actually lived at the address for 19 years.

-19 years?!

That is an incredible amount of time!

When they told you this, what did you think?

I was really surprised, cos it's the longest period I've known,

while I've been doing this job,

where someone hasn't lived at their address.

Investigators pulled the files on the Friar Park property.

The woman was listed as taking on the tenancy in January 1992.

If what the neighbours were saying was accurate,

the woman had moved out three years into her tenancy,

but had neglected to inform the council,

which was a breach of her tenancy agreement.

The neighbours said she came back once a week just to feed the cats,

and then she would stay there for a little while

and then leave the property.

I'm not 100% sure whether she used to let the cats out,

or whether she used to just leave them in the property,

but there was no catflaps on the door,

so, obviously, that just raised our concerns.

Well, that's it. It's raising concerns,

and alarm bells, really, isn't it?

-Cos it's quite a strange scenario.

-Yeah.

Authorities were now not only worried about one of their

properties not being put to proper use,

but also the welfare of any animals inside the house.

Lee realised that if the woman was returning

to the property once a week,

there was a good chance she was still living nearby.

One of the neighbours mentioned to us

the name of the partner or friend who she may be staying with.

Using the council records, I located that person,

and she was actually in that address.

-So, you managed to identify her there?

-Yeah.

When Lee confronted the woman,

she denied abandoning the property 19 years earlier,

and claimed to be staying with her partner temporarily

because she was unwell.

And you told her that you wanted to make a visit to this property,

-didn't you?

-That's right.

She's refused, because she said she was too ill.

But the person she was living with at the time,

she allowed him to come and show me round the property.

But nothing could prepare investigators

for what confronted them when they opened the front door.

The smell of cat faeces just hit you as soon as you walked in,

and it was visible.

When you walked into the living room, you could see cat sick,

-cat faeces, all in the hallway, in the living room.

-Oh, gosh!

So, there were cats. From what the neighbours had said,

they were correct - there were cats in the property?

-Yeah, it was horrible.

-And could they actually get out?

Um, from what I saw, there were no catflaps.

I witnessed one of the cats in the property,

and the breathing of the cat, it wasn't good.

Lee contacted the RSPCA

and continued to document the appalling condition of the house.

You just describing it to me, it sounds disgusting, really.

-You've got pictures, haven't you, from what it was like?

-Yeah.

These are some of the pictures which we'd taken inside the house

when we conducted our visit.

Oh, my gosh!

The photos of the property paint a horrifying picture of neglect.

Cat faeces and vomit on the beds,

the carpets, and throughout the house,

and a precious council property left to decay for nearly two decades.

I honestly can't imagine how awful it must have been

to go into a property like that.

One, it's, you know, completely been destroyed and being wasted.

Two, there's an incredibly sick animal

that appears to be trapped in the property.

And three, you're having to go round, take pictures.

You know, the smell, it's incredibly unhygienic. It's...

On so many levels, that must have been a pretty awful day.

Yeah, it was disgusting. It was probably the last visit of the day,

and like I say, it's one of the worst visits I've ever been on.

It must have made you angry.

Yeah, definitely, because like I say,

you could have a family living there, and it's just gone to waste.

It was clear that the woman hadn't lived in the property for years,

she had no need of social housing,

but when they invited her to terminate the tenancy,

she refused, informing investigators

that she would be contacting her solicitor.

What were you thinking at that point?

It was just laughable, to be honest, at that point,

because you've got photos of what you've seen in the property.

I'd got my colleague with me.

Neighbours had told me what had been going on for 19 years.

And, basically, you just think, "I'll pass that

"to our legal department, let them have a look at it,

"and they can draw up any notices that need to be served."

Lawyers began preparing their case

to have the woman's tenancy revoked in civil court,

but, within days, the tenant had a change of heart.

On February 22nd, 2015,

she handed over the keys to a home that she'd left in a dreadful state.

With this case, it's quite upsetting to see.

There are people out there who would absolutely love a property,

and need a property like this.

Yeah, I mean, you saw the size of the garden.

It's a three-bed house.

Children could be playing in that garden.

It could be a happy family home.

-Later...

-I heard the house was in a bad way before we had it.

..an astonishing new chapter in the life of the Sandwell property.

It should be loved and looked after,

and it should have happy memories here.

Go!

Yay!

Earlier, we heard how five social housing tenants in Oxford had made

Right to Buy applications, all within a few months of each other.

If successful, their combined discount on the properties

would be nearly £400,000.

But investigators suspected this was an organised and coordinated attempt

to profit from the Right to Buy scheme.

We had five gentlemen who were all of the same nationality,

or from a similar area,

who were all suddenly applying for their council houses.

Intelligence officer Tarryn Spruyt

and the fraud team wanted to find out

where these five young men were getting their money from.

They asked them for copies of their bank statements.

Once we'd received the bank statements, we were able to

cross reference the accounts and quite quickly realise that

there were thousands of pounds being transferred

amongst our applicants into each other's accounts.

When we looked at the bank statements we'd obtained,

we were seeing lots of high-value transfers

between each of the individuals.

Now, I'm not talking £300 or £400.

This is like £50,000 to £60,000 transfers

-at any one time.

-Really?

-Yeah.

Tarryn forensically analysed one of the applicant's bank statements.

Not only did he transfer money to the other Right to Buy applicants,

but he had thousands of pounds coming back from them

and also lots of money that was unaccounted for.

One example of this is back in October,

our suspect received over £28,000 into his account,

taking his balance up to over 40,000.

What was more suspicious in this case was that this was cash.

Oxford's head of fraud, Scott Warner,

suspected the funds being used to buy the properties

were not from a legitimate source.

He immediately notified the National Crime Agency.

It had all the hallmarks of money laundering. In that situation,

we have an obligation to escalate that concern

to the National Crime Agency, and we did that by submitting

a suspicious activity report to them.

The police in this case had real concerns that the money

that was going in and out of the bank accounts might be used for

activities such as human trafficking, or even for drugs.

One of the five applicants was able to satisfy fraud investigators

that the funds he was using for his purchase

were from a legitimate source.

His Right to Buy application was successful,

and the sale went through in January 2017.

The other four applications have all been withdrawn or blocked.

It's really satisfying to know that we've potentially stopped these

properties from falling into the hands of criminal gangs in Oxford.

That's not what social housing is for and we want to protect that

for those that are really in need.

Oxford City Council says all five applicants

are still deemed as high risk,

and any attempt by them to access council services

will be met with extreme scrutiny.

Intelligence reports have been submitted

to the National Crime Agency,

the National Anti-Fraud Network, and Thames Valley Police.

Amy Grice was struggling in cramped conditions

with her partner and two small children in a flat in Sandwell.

My daughter was obviously in our room.

My son was in his own room.

We had to climb six flights of stairs.

The lifts were always breaking down,

so I'd have to trail down the stairs with him in his pram.

I felt in real, real need,

but I waited and I was patient about it

and, eventually, I did get a property.

That property was the one recovered by Sandwell Council

when they discovered that its sole inhabitants

were the previous tenant's family of cats.

After nearly two decades of neglect,

the property was completely uninhabitable.

But thanks to Sandwell Council,

and some hard work from Amy and her partner,

it now looks like this.

I heard the house was in a bad way before we had it.

When we moved in here, everything was replastered.

The house was perfect.

The only downfall was the back garden.

There was a lot of mess left.

Amy and her partner have cleared and levelled the back garden

to make it child-friendly.

It's backbreaking work, but the end is in sight.

It was really bad.

The council gave us a skip, we filled that.

I've had pedal bikes, motorbikes, engines,

bits of cars, I overfilled it.

It's hard work, but the work's worth it.

It's worth it to see your children's face at the end of it

and say, "Yeah, that's my home."

-Ready?

-Steady.

Go!

Yay!

Do you want to get your scooter now?

The day I found out I was getting the place,

I was really shocked.

It felt like... It didn't feel real.

I was around the school, dropping my son off, when I had to call

to come and view the property, and it was like,

"Is this really happening to me?"

I was over the moon.

I just want to live here forever.

Obviously, once I've done all the hard work,

obviously the garden will be prepared for the grandkids,

obviously at a later date, you know what I mean?

I know it's a few years away, but I'm trying to make it kid-friendly.

In the council property, we've actually made it our home.

Somewhere for our kids to say, "Yeah, we've grown up there.

"Our mum and dad done the best for us in that council property."

If you'd bought the property and you do it up,

that's how a council house should be -

it should be loved and looked after,

and it should have happy memories here.

Seeing an abandoned and neglected house

being reclaimed and transformed into a home

fit for a young family is inspirational.

And each time this happens,

it represents a small but important victory

in the ongoing war being waged across the UK on tenancy cheats.