Episode 1 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.

Today, an inside job, as a council executive earning more than £50,000

a year attempts to unlawfully purchase a council property.

I just cannot believe, even now, when I go through this with you,

that this guy really thought he was going to get away with it.

A champagne-swigging couple claim homelessness to gain social housing

while leading a secret, jet-set life.

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 housing officers reveal a shocking misuse of council property,

as anti-social behaviour complaints lead police to an illegal drugs factory.

Going into the living room, that was sort of the moment where we kind of

knew what we were dealing with.

You know, it wasn't an amateur setup.

A total of 2,700 investigations into social housing tenancy fraud

have been carried out over the last 12 months.

Half of these cases involve illegal sublets.

The rest involve other attempts to cheat the system,

such as lying about your circumstances,

or making a false application for social housing.

Our first case exposes an executive earning more than £50,000 a year

but leading a double life to cheat authorities out of not just £23,000

in benefits, but a highly sought-after social housing property.

-This is him.

-This is Charles Kimani-Hahn.

His deception began in the leafy suburb of Blackheath in south London.

Royal Borough of Greenwich fraud investigator Clive Parrish was part

of the team that exposed this tenacious tenancy cheat.

Clive, this area looks really lovely to me.

You can see just from walking along this street.

These properties are amazing.

Beautiful houses.

Lovely, vast, open, green areas.

What about the properties over here?

So these are predominantly council-owned.

-They're council properties?

-Yeah.

They don't look like it at all.

Many of them have been bought by their tenants that have lived here

for any length of time, really, because they are so desirable.

People want to live in a part of town like this.

I'm not surprised. I mean, if I lived in London, I'd want to live here.

I can imagine the demand for a property like this when they become available is pretty high.

Yes. Oh, very much so.

I think if one of these is vacant, and it goes on to the council's list,

anybody on the waiting list will want to bid for this.

The bidding system adopted by Greenwich Council ensures each social

housing property is allocated to the person or family with the greatest need.

Once the property is advertised,

housing officers determine who is the most

suitable applicant,

based on meeting their criteria for the property and how long they've

been registered.

In June 2009 Mr Charles Kimani Hahn was one of the hopefuls

desperate to upgrade to one of these Blackheath properties.

According to council records at the time,

43-year-old Mr Hahn was an unemployed father of three.

He was the tenant of a one-bedroom flat in Greenwich.

His family was growing in size and they needed larger accommodation.

Mr Hahn's circumstances seemed all too typical.

A struggling father trying to support a young family and needing help.

For the leader of the Royal Borough of Greenwich, councillor Denise Hyland,

it was a familiar story.

Talk me through how important it is for social housing properties in the

Royal Borough of Greenwich to go to those who are in genuine need.

I meet my constituents, you know, at least on a fortnightly basis.

And I would say 90% of the cases I deal with,

it's about housing need.

We have about 16,000 people on our waiting list and it feels like it's thus ever been.

But we work very, very hard to provide housing to those in genuine need.

Sympathetic to Mr Hahn's plight,

the Royal Borough of Greenwich considered his application.

And after nearly three years on the waiting list, in May 2012,

he was allocated a two-bedroom council property next to Blackheath's

highly sought-after Cator Estate.

After living in cramped conditions for years,

this apparently struggling father had finally landed the home he'd been

dreaming of, a more spacious family property in one of London's most

appealing areas.

A lot of the houses in this road are houses of £1 million, plus.

-Really?

-And all privately owned.

And it's a really nice place.

People want to live here, you know?

It's a part of south east London that is desirable.

As far as the Royal Borough of Greenwich was concerned,

it was a job well done.

But just one month after Mr Hahn moved into his property,

he sent an application to the council that immediately rang alarm bells.

Charles Hahn informed authorities that he wished to exercise his right

to buy his new property.

Under right-to-buy legislation,

council tenants can buy their homes at a huge discount.

In this case more than £100,000.

The idea is to encourage home ownership,

but there's concern about

diminishing social housing stock.

We're selling our assets,

if you like, by our housing stock being diminished when people want to buy their own house,

which they have the right to do.

So it's very important that when a right-to-buy case comes in,

they're all scrutinised quite carefully.

And it was under this scrutiny that eagle-eyed officers spotted something

unusual in Mr Hahn's application.

During the right-to-buy process,

somebody has to produce evidence that they can get a mortgage,

their mortgage offer letter, if you like.

And Mr Hahn's mortgage offer letter, when it arrived at the council,

was addressed to him at an address in South Ockendon in Essex.

The authorities immediately became suspicious.

Officially, Charles Hahn was supposed to be a council tenant living in Blackheath.

So, why did his mortgage provider send him a letter to an address in Essex?

Later...

The shocking truth behind Charles Kimani-Hahn's deception.

We were astonished. I mean, we couldn't believe it.

And emotions run high as the impact on the wider community hits home.

Yeah, I could cry for them, you know?

Because I don't...

Oh, sorry.

Is that ridiculous?

No, not in the slightest.

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 the extreme level of 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 with the situation with housing in the UK at the moment,

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 demand for social housing in this part of the country at an all-time high,

fraudulent tenancy claims can have a devastating effect.

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 2013, 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 reserved for applicants in the most desperate need of help.

As a homeless couple with a young child,

their application was afforded the highest priority.

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.

Wolverhampton Homes immediately set about trying to find a property for

the struggling young family.

There is a knock-on effect on health for those who don't have proper

settled homes.

And when you're raising a family,

it's very difficult to bring a family up and teach them family values if

you don't have a settled environment in which to do so.

So...

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

it looked like the answer to everyone's prayers.

A two-bedroom house became available in an area in Wolverhampton and

this particular couple put a bid on for that property.

It's a popular area, it's a family neighbourhood,

reasonably good schools in the area, good connections into the city,

and you've got the countryside on your doorstep,

so it's a sought-after area.

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, a young couple had been given

the essential support they needed to raise a family.

Yes, I suppose, especially because of 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 18 months into the Mpofus' tenancy, one such check alerted

investigators 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.

Mkhululi and Vanessa Mpofu were already living in social housing ten miles away in Walsall.

This was not a homeless family in need of support, but a pair of fraudsters

intent on cheating the system.

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.

Back in Blackheath,

Charles Kimani-Hahn was a supposedly unemployed father of three who'd been awarded

a tenancy beside the highly sought-after Cator Estate by Greenwich Council.

So these are predominantly council-owned.

-They're council properties?

-Yeah.

-They don't look like it at all.

When he applied to purchase his council property with a right-to-buy

discount of more than £100,000,

authorities were alerted by his mortgage provider to a mysterious

second address in Essex.

Charles Hahn and then the address here in South Ockendon.

In Greenwich, counter-fraud manager Nigel Brown's team of investigators

have dealt with more than 2,000 cases of tenancy fraud in the last two years.

When Charles Hahn's right-to-buy form landed on their desk,

their suspicions were immediately aroused.

So what is it that we can see from this document?

As a result of putting the right-to-buy form in,

he also provided us with details of his mortgage provider.

Because we ask them as a matter of course,

how are you going to fund the property?

So in this case he provided a letter to us to tell us that he was going

to get a mortgage, but inadvertently we saw on this letter that it refers

to the borrower, Mr Charles Hahn,

and then it's got an address here in Aveley in South Ockendon, Essex.

So this raised an alarm bell as to, why is this on there?

This would appear to be his home address.

Investigators delved deeper to find out what connected a property in

South Ockendon to Charles Kimani-Hahn,

one of their tenants renting a council property in Blackheath.

What they discovered was alarming.

Charles Hahn was already a property owner

and therefore had no need of social housing.

We did a land registry check and, well, lo and behold,

Mr Charles Hahn is the owner of that property in South Ockendon

and he purchased it for £190,000 in July 2010.

To investigators, a worrying picture was beginning to emerge.

Between the time Mr Hahn applied for his Blackheath property, and the day

he was handed the keys, he had purchased a house in Essex.

He had neglected to inform the authorities.

When Mr Hahn applied to get a larger property,

he was living in a one-bedroom flat.

But between the time that he applied and the time that he got granted the

tenancy here, his circumstances had changed.

He'd bought a house, he had an alternative place to live.

He didn't actually need that social housing any more.

And it would have been his responsibility to tell us that he'd

bought a property and he hadn't told us.

The evidence confirmed investigators' suspicions.

While applying to rent a highly sought-after council property in

Blackheath, Charles Kimani-Hahn already owned another house.

This was fraud.

Investigators decided to take a closer look into Mr Hahn's background,

and began to uncover an extraordinary double life.

Mr Hahn had been claiming benefit for a number of years as an unemployed person,

or as a person who was sick.

But what we actually found was that he had full-time jobs,

he was working as a consultant,

he was a Health and Safety Executive at another

local authority in London,

the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.

-Oh, my gosh.

-And was actually quite a high earner.

So he was working within the council?

Yes, within another council, yes.

What did that make you think when you heard that?

I mean, the cheek of it at the very start is crazy,

but to think he was working within the council,

knowing clearly that something like this is wrong.

Yes, well, the department that he was Health and Safety Executive for

-was the Department of Housing within that local authority.

-Oh, my gosh!

So he must have had an idea about everything

about what social housing was about and the importance of it.

When you saw this information, what did you think?

You must have been shocked.

Yes, really quite shocked

and it was sort of far-reaching, it had gone back quite a few years.

Yes, it was quite surprising.

When officers investigated further,

they discovered that through consultancy work with a number of

organisations, including the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham,

and the London Borough of Southwark, Mr Hahn was earning £55,000 a year.

And all the while claiming to be unemployed and in receipt of thousands of

pounds in benefits.

It wasn't just the right to buy and the tenancy fraud that was an issue for us now,

it was also the fact that he had been on unemployment benefit,

or employment support allowance as it's now called,

claiming to be an unemployed male whilst working and earning £55,000 a year in the council.

Not only that, we found that he'd also defrauded us on housing benefit

because at some point, he'd claimed benefit from the council property

we had given him and never declared again that he was working.

So we always thought, and had evidence to show, that he was an unemployed male.

Charles Kimani-Hahn had deliberately withheld information about his change of

circumstances - information he knew would have led to his application

for social housing being rejected.

Looking at all this evidence,

you can see it's a man who's been incredibly deceptive but very

methodical and systematic with the whole thing.

Yes, I mean, for a few years he pretended to be a man,

unemployed male with a family,

who needed help and assistance from the council.

We ourselves awarded him housing benefit,

which we've overpaid him £23,000 as a result of this fraud.

Yet this was a man that's living a double life, earning £55,000 a year

as an executive of a local council.

You know, this guy should have known better.

I just cannot believe, even now when I go through this with you,

that this guy really thought he was going to get away with it.

It almost feels like this is the type of fraud that's on your doorstep

because it was someone within the council

and you look at your colleagues and, you know, friends within work,

and think, well, you wouldn't do that, the person you're working with wouldn't do that,

but then it's someone within your industry.

No, you're right,

it was one of our own committing fraud, really.

So in essence, Mr Hahn was leading a double life, wasn't he?

Yes, that's it, in a nutshell, exactly that.

He had two lives.

Mr Hahn was arrested and, in the face of overwhelming evidence, pleaded guilty

to multiple offences under the Fraud Act and the Social Security Administration Act.

The judge interestingly, though,

had some pretty descriptive words on the case, didn't he?

He was quite passionate about it.

Yes, he did, he said, "In the summer of 2012,

"someone meeting you would see a well-presented head of health and safety

"at a large London Borough with a good salary.

"No-one would have guessed what a fraud you are."

On December 20, 2016,

Charles Kimani-Hahn was given a prison sentence

of two and a half years.

For the investigators who exposed his deception,

the punishment fit the crime.

We were pleased when the result came through and he was put away in

prison - I mean, that was a good result, really,

because he thoroughly deserved it.

Not only has he deprived people who genuinely need properties -

and a nice property, too - he's gone on to claim money from the council,

housing benefit and other things, council tax.

You know, I have to pay my council tax, and we all have to pay.

He didn't have to pay any of it because we thought he was unemployed.

In Greenwich, the actions of fraudsters like Charles Hahn have a direct

impact on the 16,000 people currently sat on the social housing waiting list.

So from your point of view, you see people who are desperate for housing,

desperate for accommodation, they're coming to you week in, week out.

How does that make you feel on a personal level?

And many of them I would consider to be the working poor.

They are people who work in retail,

many of them will be working on zero-hours contracts.

So a lot of them won't claim benefits because their earnings are going up

and down like a yo-yo.

And frankly, I could cry for them, you know, because I don't...

Sorry.

Is that ridiculous?

No, not in the slightest.

But that's the whole thing, isn't it?

It's an extremely emotional thing

and you just want the system to be working how it should be.

And that's why you're working tirelessly to make sure these people get the

accommodation they deserve.

It's sickening, isn't it?

Because here we are trying to do our best to make sure there is a fair

system for housing

and then you get people who are trying to subvert the whole process.

And so taking back our properties from these fraudsters and giving them to

those in genuine need is a priority for this council and every council

in the land.

With the demand for council properties on the increase,

it is now more important than ever to crack down on the fraudsters.

20 miles north of Greenwich in the London Borough of Havering,

almost 10% of the population live in poor or overcrowded conditions -

that's more than 9,000 households.

More and more people are struggling to be able to get a property and

support themselves in private rented accommodation and so, as a borough,

we are responsible for providing social housing where appropriate.

It's fraud investigator Zed Eagling-Rana's job

to make sure that Havering's

precious stock of social housing doesn't fall foul of the fraudsters.

We need to make sure that people aren't abusing the system,

it is in place for people that are in need

and it needs to be allocated where appropriate.

Where it's not, obviously,

that's where our job comes into place and we take great pride

in finding out where people are abusing the system,

and if we can rectify that, so it's allocated to those that do

actually genuinely need it.

Havering investigators work closely with the police,

sharing information to help crack down on the illegal use of

council properties.

And in April 2016,

they received information concerning a potential shocking misuse of one

of their flats.

We explained to the police force exactly what kind of things we were

looking for in terms of people not living at their properties,

council tenants. At this point they actually had a case already on the

tip of their tongues, so they actually explained to us about a warrant they'd

had granted by the courts to enter a property for cannabis cultivation

and with that, they suspected that the tenant actually wasn't living at

the property, either.

Zed and his team checked their tenancy records ahead

of the police raid.

So this is a one-bedroom property.

It's the top floor of a block of flats.

It's a perfect flat for an individual or a couple.

The tenant was there for 13 years.

To the best of the council's knowledge, the tenant was living there.

There'd been complaints about anti-social behaviour at the property,

so when the police executed the warrant, Zed decided to join them.

Often where we are trying to get hold of tenants, they're just not home.

That's because they are living their normal lives.

And so on this occasion, where we suspected -

and, actually, the police suspected -

that the tenant wasn't living at the property,

it was a perfect opportunity to actually go to the property and see what the circumstances were.

We made all the checks that we thought were necessary to ensure our

safety. Ultimately we're going there for a drug warrant,

not knowing what's behind that door.

We weren't really sure to what extent the property was being used

for cannabis cultivation and that added to the air of mystery.

By the time the police arrived, the tenant had long since vanished.

To get inside the flat,

they first had to deal with an iron gate barring their way.

Yes, so, as you can see, the iron gate is here

that the police removed from the property.

Could be a whole array of things,

but it might imply they want to be locked away from the world for

whatever reason that may be.

The big part of it was anticipation in terms of, you know, well, OK,

we've got the gate off,

we're about to go in and what are the police going to find?

Nothing could prepare Zed for the sight that greeted him once police

finally got into the flat.

A council property intended for someone in need of social housing

had been converted into a cannabis manufacturing plant.

When we initially went in there was lots of what appeared to be cannabis

residue all over the floor, the smell was dire.

We could see on the back of the actual front door itself they'd put

a sort of makeshift black bin bag over the top and Sellotaped it down

to sort of probably prevent any sort of smell from leaking out.

Going into the living room, that was sort of the moment where we kind of

knew what we were dealing with.

All the cannabis had actually been cropped,

it had actually been removed from the property,

but definitely not used as someone's regular living room.

The walls were layered with foil to keep the heat in.

There were fans and infrared lights.

Holes had been drilled into the walls to access

the main power supply.

This was a professional job.

The damage to the property in terms of being able to facilitate this was

phenomenal. And here is where you can see the actual electricity that

was being extracted for that.

And then finally, the main clincher for us,

and the reason why we were there, is the bedroom.

And I couldn't actually set foot into the bedroom properly.

And so the photo I've got just demonstrates well, there's no bed,

it's being used as a sort of set-up area.

I would highly doubt someone was sleeping in there.

When you're going to someone's property, even if it's privately let,

you're expecting a home to be there, someone's home that they live in.

And to go in and find a foiled-up room with fans and electricity being

extracted, it's not what you're expecting.

The borough of Havering repossessed the flat and restored it to its

previous condition, costing thousands of pounds.

Once the keys were handed back and we took full possession of the property,

we turned it back round, refurbished it and got it back up to a standard that was able

to be re-let and, you know,

since it's had a new tenant put in there and, you know, hopefully they're enjoying

the property for its actual proper use.

The tenants responsible for converting the flat

into a cannabis factory have yet to be traced.

Earlier we learnt 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.

After claiming their family was homeless,

Mkhululi and Vanessa Mpofu had obtained a rare two-bedroomed council house, when,

in fact, they had somewhere to live, ten miles away in Walsall.

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.

The couple had already withheld vital information on their tenancy

application. Investigators decided to take a 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.

And when investigators examined the couple's online profile,

they were surprised by their lifestyle.

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.

A couple who authorities considered homeless, and in dire need of social

housing, had lied to hide their true circumstances.

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.

The extreme nature of the couple's fraud was enough for investigators

to take unprecedented 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.

In the face of irrefutable evidence,

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 have now handed the keys back and moved overseas.

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.

Since the couple's conviction,

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.

Wolverhampton Homes have uncovered a total of 320 cases of tenancy fraud,

including unlawful sublets and false applications.

How would I describe people that do commit frauds

to get into council properties?

I'm afraid I'm just absolutely disgusted, disgusted with them.

People who are abusing the system by saying they're homeless,

saying they're sleeping on a friend's couch, it's terrible

because it is stealing away the properties for the people who do genuinely

need it, who are genuinely homeless.

I would shop a friend or a colleague if they were committing fraud.

Because there are people...

Well, housing fraud in particular,

because there are people out there who desperately need housing.

Young families are on the street.

Thanks to the tireless work of fraud investigators,

precious family homes are being reclaimed from tenancy cheats and re-let

to people for whom a home will make the world of difference.

This is Jenny Jones from Wolverhampton and her daughter, Millie.

Again, again!

Faster, faster!

Jenny was on the social housing waiting list for six months,

sleeping on an air bed in her parents' dining room.

So you were on the housing waiting list for six months.

Just describe to me what it was like for you and your family in those

darkest moment.

I felt ashamed that things had got to that point

and I hadn't been able to...

Things were out of my control.

I felt like I had nothing of my own.

That I was relying on my parents and it had come to the fact that I was

sleeping on an air bed.

How did this property come about in the end?

Well, I bid on the property, I hadn't come top of the list for it.

And then about three weeks after the bidding for the property had ended,

I had a call from the lettings team to say that, for whatever reason,

the person who was before me didn't want the property.

And I was next for it.

How did you feel?

Oh, I cried... I was so happy, I cried.

I think I made the guy on the phone feel slightly awkward.

I was just so happy, just run to my mum and dad, saying, "I've got one, I've got one."

What does it mean to you now, Jenny,

to have a place that you and Millie can call your home?

It means everything, it means everything to me.

It's ours, it's our little place,

it's where we can come back to if we've had a hard day at work,

a hard day at school, somewhere we can be happy,

where we can make memories and I can watch her grow up.

And to have my own responsibilities, I enjoy it,

I enjoy taking responsibility for paying the bills and to know that

I've paid those bills, that's mine now, I own it, this is mine.

It just does wonders for your self-esteem, I think,

to know that you've got that place

that's nobody else's, just yours.

Well, it's lovely to see someone who obviously did need it, like yourself,

in a lovely property.

It would be great to have a little look around.

OK, yes.

This is the lounge.

It's a great space, isn't it?

Feels like a proper home.

Yes, I do try to make it nice and homely.

-Would you like to see upstairs?

-Let's do it.

And here is Millie's room.

Oh, now this is lovely.

It's just lovely and colourful.

-Yes, it's her space.

-That's it, it's her space.

-I bet she has great fun in here.

-Oh, she does, she does.

So, yes, she normally has all her toys everywhere and it's just somewhere

where she can come after school or when she gets up in the morning and

just create her own little world and her own little stories in here.

And it's a good-sized space for her as she gets older.

I did think that, as well.

When she does get older and she wants less space for toys and more space for wardrobes, TVs.

That's it, us girls like a good wardrobe.

It is a really good size.

For Jenny, social housing meant more than just a roof over her head.

It also provided a new direction professionally.

To gain a council properly has changed my life immensely.

Not only has it got me and Millie out of a terrible situation,

and it's meant we've had a place of our own,

but it's also opened up opportunities of work to me.

So I was able to gain employment with the council, so I now work for them.

And I help other tenants get back into work, like they did with me.

To give me a home, my daughter a home, a roof over our heads,

and then to give me a job where I can support myself and my daughter,

I will be eternally grateful.

It's my fresh start, my new chapter.

It's everything that a mother would want for her child.

It symbolises so much more than just somewhere to live.

Social housing can make a real, tangible difference to people's lives.

And that's why the work of housing investigators is so vitally important,

as they track down the tenancy cheats,

reclaim properties and give them to people who really need them.