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's 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 a Council House Crackdown.

Today...

the fake council cleaner who over 14 years brazenly swindled hundreds of

thousands of pounds from the public purse.

You'd think she'd want to steer away from the council rather than be

-working within the building.

-Exactly.

Investigators unravel an illegal subletter's lies...

There you can see a handbag there and girl's pyjamas.

There was nothing in that flat belonging to Mr Raji.

Nothing at all.

..revealing an astonishing double life.

This is an individual who is mixing with Premiership footballers

who's, you know, got a very well-paid job.

The arrogance of that, really, is the galling part.

And subtenants help a fraud team bring down an illegal landlord.

Yeah, we're home now, so if you want, you can come around.

-I need to speak to you, please.

-Can you open the door, please, sir?

Social housing is intended to go to those most in need.

It provides struggling families and individuals with a stable home

and subsidised rent well below the market value,

but for unscrupulous social tenants,

subletting their home and charging at or near the normal market rate

provides a lucrative but unlawful income.

Our first case involves this man - Adio Raji,

a fully qualified goalkeeping coach,

working at some of London's top football clubs and leading a lifestyle

that would be the envy of any football fan.

This is an individual who's mixing the Premiership footballers,

who's got a very well-paid job and making a profit out of this flat.

You know, the arrogance of that, really, is the galling part.

It all started here in this block of flats right next door to

Charlton Athletic Football Club in south-east London.

Back in 1995, Mr Raji, a single young man,

who enjoyed his football and was in need of housing,

was allocated a flat on the 12th floor.

To Greenwich counter fraud manager Nigel Brown and his colleagues,

this tenancy seemed like a perfect match.

As you can see, we're right next to and overlooking the Charlton football ground.

This is a really desirable place to live and this is where Mr Raji

had his one-bedroom flat.

Now, if you are into your football, you are really close to the ground,

you wouldn't even need to pay for a ticket.

Although Mr Raji's flat was social housing,

it was owned and run not by Greenwich Council,

but by housing association Charlton Triangle.

There are over four million social housing properties in the UK.

More than half of those, 2.3 million,

are owned and run by housing associations.

The rest are council properties.

Charlton Triangle rent officer Annette and fraud investigator Yasmin

pride themselves on getting to know their tenants and supporting them

through difficult times.

One of their favourite tenants was none other than Mr Raji.

He used to come into the office and we used to, you know, laugh and joke

with him and everybody got to know him and we all liked him.

I mean, he had rent arrears. We were trying to sustain the tenancy.

One of the ways of doing that is helping people get into employment.

So that was one of the main things we helped him to do.

But everybody knew him.

-He was quite a charismatic person, I suppose.

-Yes.

Mr Raji eventually got work as a UEFA qualified goalkeeping coach

and during the time he was living in the flat, he worked at several top

football clubs, as well as doing jobs such as chauffeuring

to top up his income.

Then, in June 2015,

fraud investigator Yasmin

got a tip-off e-mail from Charlton Triangle's building services team

telling her there appeared to be two women living

in Mr Raji's one-bedroom flat.

Knowing Mr Raji as they did, they were surprised by the information.

And we were like, no, it's a mistake, something's wrong.

Myself and Annette went down to the property.

We got to the door and there was a young lady coming out of the lift.

We asked if she lived in the property, she said yes.

Having been let into the flat, they had a good look around.

We took some photographs and as you can see, this is a girl's bedroom.

Mauve and pink colours were all round the room.

There was flowers there.

There you can see a handbag there, girl's pyjamas.

There wasn't so much as a pair of football boots to suggest Mr Raji

was living there.

And this is the other end of the room.

Mr Raji is 6'4" with no hair at all,

so there'd be no reason for him to have a hairdryer.

It was starting to look as if Mr Raji had moved out of his

social housing property and two young women have moved in.

This is supposed to be the front room, but had a double bed in it.

Again, women's things.

There was no men's products around.

Their make up, creams...

Actually, when I saw this, I did have to laugh.

It was quite clear-cut he was subletting to these young ladies

because there was nothing in that flat belonging to Mr Raji.

Nothing at all.

The woman at the flat gave them a witness statement there and then,

saying she and the other subtenant were paying Mr Raji a total

of £800 a month in rent -

nearly twice the social rent Mr Raji was paying

Charlton Triangle.

She said she'd been staying there for the last 12 months.

They would pay into his bank account. Then he stopped that

and said that he wanted cash only.

And they said, on the 6th of every month, he would come up to the flat

and take the cash from them.

And apparently he had a key and would let himself in as well.

So he would just turn up and walk into the flat.

Yasmin and Annette were shocked.

If the claims of the subtenant were true, their tenant, Mr Raji,

was guilty of tenancy fraud.

One of those situations where you scratch your head in disbelief.

You think, "No, not Mr Raji. Can't be." But, yes, it was.

They invited him to come into the office for an interview.

He denied subletting his one-bedroom flat,

claiming the woman was an ex-partner who was staying there rent free.

And we were kind of like, "Where do you sleep?"

-And he said the hallway.

-He said he slept in the hallway.

We got him to sign some paperwork saying that

was his only home, his only principal home,

that he was not living anywhere else.

But his story didn't ring true.

He said that we were his friends.

-Yes.

-That's the bit that made me laugh.

That, you know, we were his best friends, almost.

And he wouldn't do anything to hurt us.

With Mr Raji denying everything,

Yasmin and Annette needed hard evidence.

So they called in the Royal Borough of Greenwich fraud team

led by experienced investigator Karen Evans.

I've dealt with a lot of sublets.

And often people will deny that they're subletting.

You don't expect them to do anything else. Often they've been doing it

for many years and making a lot of money from it. So they're going to

try and cover their tracks. My job is to undo what they're telling me,

to find out what is the truth,

to obtain the evidence to prove that, and get them into court,

and hopefully get the conviction at the end of the day.

The Prevention of Social Housing Tenancy Fraud Act 2013

makes unauthorised subletting a criminal offence,

punishable by up to two years in jail or a fine of up to £50,000.

Councils have been given new powers to access personal data

such as bank accounts,

in order to help them secure evidence of tenancy fraud,

and prosecute those responsible.

Later, as Greenwich Council

used these new powers to unravel Mr Raji's deception,

he reveals his true colours.

He was lying from the beginning.

He was blaming somebody else for what he was doing wrong.

We couldn't believe that Mr Raji would behave in that manner.

Shocking and upsetting and disappointing, to say the least.

There are more than 200,000 social housing properties

across the West Midlands.

That's 5% of the UK's entire social housing stock.

But even so, the pressure on housing here is huge.

And Birmingham has embarked on a programme to build 2,000 more

council properties by 2020.

In Sandwell, six miles outside Birmingham,

there are around 4,000 people on the housing waiting list,

many in overcrowded or emergency accommodation.

Our next case involves this woman, Yvette Logan,

real name Lillian Wade.

She shouldn't even be in the UK,

but for the last 14 years,

she's been living in a council flat in Sandwell

claiming almost £100,000 in benefits and even getting herself a job

at the local council.

So, let me get this straight,

she had a council property in the name of Yvette Logan,

passport in the name of Yvette Logan,

and was working for the council in the name of Yvette Logan.

I find it absolutely shocking.

The story starts here at Gatwick Airport,

where Lillian Wade arrived from Jamaica in 1999.

She was refused entry, but granted temporary admission

for just half a day,

on the condition she flew back the next morning.

But she absconded.

And it was to take another 14 years before anyone caught up with her.

I'm in Sandwell to see the council's counter fraud manager Oliver Knight.

So, when she came to us, she'd been in the country for about a year

before she approached the council.

She explained that she was a single person and in need of accommodation.

And so, what was her application like?

It didn't have any alarm bells or anything that you thought...?

No, there was nothing untoward.

Nothing that really looked like anything was suspicious.

By now, Lillian Wade had a whole new identity.

She called herself Yvette Logan.

Aged 55, she had a UK passport in that name,

and a national insurance number also in that name.

Her housing application was successful.

As a single woman in need of somewhere to live,

she was allocated a council flat.

But her next move was even more brazen.

As well as applying for a council property, she also came to us

in about 2000 and applied for a job and was given a position

as a cleaner. And worked there for about four or five years.

So, let me get this straight,

she had a council property in the name of Yvette Logan,

a passport in the name of Yvette Logan,

and was working for the council in the name of Yvette Logan.

I find it absolutely shocking.

Just the cheek of it. How did she get away with it?

In all honestly, I don't know.

Even to this day. Obviously, the passport was the trigger.

And the identification behind that. And, obviously, once she's got that,

it makes it a lot easier to get through the checks that we would have in place.

You'd think she'd want to steer away from the council rather than be working within the building.

Exactly. You wouldn't have thought for a second that her ideal placement

for work would have been right under the noses of the council.

And what do your colleagues at Sandwell Council think about this?

Well, obviously, it was amazing at the time.

When we began the investigation,

we thought it was just about the council property.

It was only when we started to look at who she was

that we realised she'd actually been employed by us as well.

In 2005, Yvette Logan resigned from her cleaning job at the council

on medical grounds and started claiming benefits.

She received housing benefit and council tax benefit,

as well as other benefits.

Effectively, the council then began to pay her rent for her and she was

-living rent-free.

-How much money, roughly, in total, did this amount to?

In total, she received about £30,000 of benefits,

housing benefit and council tax benefit.

She also claimed benefits from the Department for Work and Pensions,

including incapacity benefit, income support,

employment and support allowance

and disability living allowance.

Grand total - nearly £100,000.

And then in 2013 after a routine data matching exercise,

authorities noticed Yvette Logan was using

someone else's national insurance number

and that someone else was also called Yvette Logan.

And that's when it became clear through the DWP that there wasn't

one Yvette Logan, there were two with the same national insurance number.

It appeared that what she'd been doing is using the national insurance number

of a different Yvette Logan elsewhere in the country.

The real Yvette Logan was living in London and was completely unaware

her details were being used by someone else.

At first, the authorities assumed there'd been a mix-up and issued

Yvette Logan, the one living in Sandwell,

with a new national insurance number. But behind the scenes,

suspicions had been aroused and an investigation was launched.

How did it eventually get to the point where she came under investigation?

Well, in 2014 she was arrested by the Department for Work and Pensions,

along with the police,

following an investigation that they'd been conducting.

The fact that she'd got an identity that they didn't believe to be correct

and obviously we then looked at the housing application and thought,

well, this isn't right, she should never have been given the housing

application because the information she supplied wasn't correct.

And I guess it just goes to show that you can't rule anything out

cos people will go to extraordinary lengths to get these properties and

literally slipped through the net.

With so many people desperate for social housing,

local councils across the UK now have much more rigorous processes

in place to ensure social housing goes to people who really need it,

and who are eligible for it.

We do a lot more in terms of application checkers now,

especially anybody coming in from a different country.

We've got better systems in place to look at the application

and the documentation that they're providing, as well as a lot more

data matching, so ensuring that the information that's held with

the likes of the passport agency and immigration is up-to-date.

On February 24th 2015,

Yvette Logan appeared before Wolverhampton Crown Court

under her real name, Lillian Wade.

She admitted gaining a pecuniary advantage by deception by falsely

representing she was a British citizen entitled to work in the UK

and cheating the public revenue.

She also admitted being in possession of a false identity

document with intent.

Lillian Wade, AKA Yvette Logan,

was sentenced to four years in jail.

When released, she will be deported.

I can imagine when the news came through, you must've felt like

-punching the air.

-Yeah, well, obviously, it was a good decision

for us and for the Department for Work and Pensions

who led the prosecution.

It was only at that point that she surrendered the tenancy to us.

Funnily enough, she actually phoned us

from prison to indicate that she'd return the property keys and posted

them through the letterbox.

And obviously the fake Yvette Logan is no longer in this property.

Is someone in it now that actually genuinely needs it?

There is, yeah. Following the fact that we got the property back,

obviously it was cleaned up and it was reallocated to somebody

that needed it and they've lived in the property since.

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets,

with soaring property prices, around 20,000 people on the waiting list

for social housing and more than 80 families with children

registered as homeless.

But 600 properties have been lost

here through Right to Buy applications

in the last five years.

Most of my friends are moving out because of the price

of the houses local, especially in this area, Tower Hamlets.

We definitely need more council and social housing,

without a shadow of a doubt. I think the whole idea that everybody can

afford to get on the property ladder is nonsense now.

But I don't know how you do anything

about that because most of the places

that were council houses have been sold off.

The housing crisis is hitting hard,

so it's inevitable that every time someone cheats the system by holding

on to a property they don't need,

or by unlawfully subletting it,

someone else loses out.

Our next case spans two years and involves this young couple

who became innocent victims caught up in a tenancy fraud case

involving this man, Kibria Ahmed.

I was really upset. It was horrible.

It felt like everything was perfect and then it's just been taken away.

The story begins here in Tower Hamlets where, in October 2015,

this young couple, Shannon and her boyfriend Nayim,

were looking to build a home together.

We had a look on Gumtree and found this flat.

It seemed perfect for what we wanted.

-It was nice.

-We arranged to meet up with the landlord.

We sort of reviewed it and everything seemed OK.

He seemed legit. And then, yeah, we sort of moved in the following week.

The rent for the one-bedroom flat was £800 per month plus

a £600 deposit.

They'd been saving up and could just about afford it.

We used to be sharing flats before, sharing houses,

and being in rooms with someone else there.

But that was only our place. It looks like it's our home.

As soon as they moved in,

Shannon and Nayim set about turning their flat into a home.

It was just great getting things for the house.

It felt really good.

It felt like home. I loved coming home from work and stuff like that.

-It was brilliant.

-Yeah, it was nice.

Like, having a new home,

you are happy to call someone, to invite someone to come round.

-Yeah, proud.

-It was good.

-It's our house.

But unbeknown to Shannon and Nayim,

their new home was not a private flat, it was social housing.

And the tenant, Kibria Ahmed, the man who was supposed to be living there,

was unlawfully subletting it.

Mr Ahmed was allocated the flat

back in 2008 by housing association Poplar Harca.

Following a tip-off that Mr Ahmed wasn't living there,

Poplar Harca's fraud investigator Avril Drummond

decided to investigate.

On the 3rd of December 2015,

she called round to the flat hoping to see Mr Ahmed, but instead finding

Shannon and Nayim.

It was a police officer and it was this lady. I thought,

"What's happened? Maybe something's happened."

She sort of said, "I'm the proper landlord."

I was a bit like, "No, you're not." So she showed me her ID

and I was like, "OK, maybe you'd better come in."

Avril broke the news to them

that the flat was being unlawfully sublet.

Shannon and Nayim were devastated.

I was really upset. I mean, it was horrible.

It felt like everything was perfect and then it's just been taken away.

How can someone do that to innocent people?

It really hurt.

I mean, having a house, finally living on my own with a person

that I really wanted to be with and then everything is taken away.

Avril needed to come face-to-face with her unlawful tenant,

so she enlisted the help of Shannon and Nayim.

She came up with a plan to ask the landlord around to fix a blocked sink.

Our cameras were filming with Avril and her team when this plan

came to fruition on the 9th of December 2015.

The best scenario would be for

this landlord to tell us everything that has been going on,

hold his hands up, then we'll take it from there.

Once round at the flat,

Avril gives Shannon and Nayim a last minute briefing.

Hello. All right?

Yeah, thank you for seeing me again today.

Obviously, we're now waiting for your landlord to turn up, OK?

So we'll just play it by ear when he gets here.

We've got the police on stand-by and they are in the locality, as well,

OK?

Nayim calls the man who's posing as his landlord and checks

he's on his way.

Hi, are you all right?

Yeah, we are home now, so if you want to come around.

-All right, thanks, bye.

-Next few minutes.

The man in question is about to arrive.

I'm going to be in here. He's not going to know who I am.

I've got my identification badge on me but I'm not going to be

-wearing it until he comes in.

-Yeah.

Later, the search for the illegal subletter Kibria Ahmed

is stepped up.

I need to speak to you, please. I'm from Poplar Harca.

Can you open the door, please, sir?

And what happens when he's finally brought to justice.

INDISTINCT SHOUTING

Earlier, UEFA-qualified goalkeeping coach Adio Raji was suspected of

illegally subletting his social housing flat.

To find out if it was true,

housing association Charlton Triangle decided to pay him a visit.

There you can see a handbag, girls pyjamas.

Mr Raji is 6'4" with no hair at all.

So there would be no reason for him to have a hairdryer.

Actually, when I saw this, I did have to laugh.

It was quite clear-cut he was subletting to these young ladies.

Cos there was nothing in that flat belonging to Mr Raji.

Nothing at all.

One of the subtenants made a witness statement saying that they

were paying Mr Raji £800 a month in rent,

but the football coach denied everything.

One of those situations where you scratch your head in disbelief.

You think, "No, not Mr Raji. Can't be." But, yes, it was.

If he really was committing tenancy fraud, they needed hard evidence.

The Royal Borough of Greenwich fraud team was called in,

led by investigator Karen Evans.

Her first step was to re-interview the subtenant

who was to prove a key witness.

She provided Karen with details of the bank accounts

she used to pay rent to Mr Raji.

The evidence that we can obtain from the banks now

is conclusive, so conclusive, such conclusive evidence.

The subtenant told us that she'd used a certain bank account

to pay the money into a bank account number.

We obtained copies of both of those bank accounts,

which showed the transfer of money from her to him.

Bank records show the subtenants were making rental payments

to Mr Raji of £184 a week.

That's nearly £800 a month.

That meant, once he'd paid his social rent,

Mr Raji was making a clear profit of £330 a month.

The profit that he'd made for the period that we could prove amounted

to £4,330.

Mr Raji continued to vehemently deny he was subletting.

Clearly, the evidence didn't back that up.

And that's why I wanted to get him in to interview

and ask him about the situation,

showing the documentation that we'd obtained,

which quite clearly showed the money being paid from the subtenants

on a regular basis and him very nicely profiting from the situation.

Mr Raji was invited to attend an interview under caution

at Greenwich Council.

He came in.

He was represented by a solicitor and, right from the off,

offered no comment to any questions that we wanted to ask him.

He produced a written statement

to us which said, "I've always lived there,

"I don't sublet it, I've never taken in a lodger or a subtenant,"

and he signs that document as a statement of truth

here on the 13th of July 2015.

Karen's colleague, fellow fraud investigator Clive Parish,

was also present at the interview.

He seemed quite affronted that we were asking him questions at all

and that made him a little different, really,

to the people that I might normally interview. There was almost

an arrogance about him in the way that he said "No comment,"

and for somebody like Mr Raji, who put

a person into his flat and he charged them a rent,

a rent far and above what he was paying for the flat himself,

is completely wrong and he was making a profit

out of his social housing tenancy.

-Shock and disbelief...

-Yeah.

..because we deal with people like this all the time.

The bottom line is the greed.

-Yeah, it is.

-It's the hurtful thing.

I feel sorry for the people that are caught in the middle of it.

Charlton Triangle served Mr Raji

with a notice to quit and ordered him to hand the keys back.

He still refused to leave, saying this is where he lived,

he had nowhere else to go and his landlord took him to court,

civil courts, on a couple of occasions.

He was represented and he continued

to deny that he'd done anything wrong.

Instead, he contacted the subtenants and told them

that they had to leave.

Within a couple of days, he contacted the occupants of the flat,

he told them that he'd reported the situation to the police,

that they shouldn't be there

and that they have to move out immediately.

One of the occupants left immediately, never to be seen again.

The other subtenant,

the one who'd given a witness statement against Mr Raji,

was away on holiday.

But that didn't stop him from removing her belongings.

He came round to this property

whilst the lady that was renting from him was on holiday

and he got all of her stuff and he moved it all out.

He put all of her belongings and furniture in storage

and when she came back from her holiday,

she opened the door and all her stuff was gone.

In fact, I believe she couldn't even get the door open because he changed the locks.

We couldn't believe that Mr Raji would behave in a manner.

That was quite...

shocking and upsetting and disappointing, to say the least.

I think the reason why the subtenants were ousted out

of the property was so that he could quickly get back in there to make it

look like this is where he lives.

In March 2016,

Mr Raji finally agreed to sign forms giving up possession

and return the flat to Charlton Triangle.

After about a year since we interviewed him, he finally seemed

to come to his senses that this was not going to go away,

that he was not going to get away with it.

By this time, we had got our solicitors involved.

Myself and another colleague turned up at the flat with the solicitor,

with the consent order to say that he was going to give up his flat

and that he would hand the keys back, but he signed the order

so we got back our one-bedroom property that went

to somebody deserving of it.

But that wasn't the end of the matter.

Because of his deception and the overwhelming evidence,

Greenwich Council decided to proceed with a criminal prosecution.

In December 2016, Mr Raji pleaded guilty to fraud,

unlawful subletting and unlawful eviction.

I think that Mr Raji realised that, you know, it was bang to rights.

The evidence was overwhelming.

The statements that backed it up were all there.

He didn't really have much movement. If we were going to go to trial,

he knew he would be in a difficult situation and I think he realised

that he needed to back down and plead and take the rap, basically.

After an investigation lasting nearly two years,

Mr Raji was given a 12 month jail sentence,

suspended for 18 months,

and was ordered to pay £4,330

in compensation -

the amount he had made

in unlawful profits.

Obviously, you know, it takes a lot of time and effort, but the result

was the right result of the end of the day and we were very satisfied

with the outcome.

An opinion shared by head of fraud at Greenwich Council, Nigel Brown.

You could argue should he go to prison, yes or no?

At the end of the day, it costs us all money to put Mr Raji in prison,

therefore there is no financial gain out of that.

I think for him to lose £4,500 and to have that

now on his record in the future that he's been done for tenancy fraud

is a good thing for all concerned, other than him, obviously.

I know how short we are of social housing.

I know how many people are desperate to find somewhere to live and yet

we've still got tenants making their own allocations policies

and deciding who they should be housing and that's not how it works.

That frustrates me and it satisfies me greatly

to know that we've got that property back.

Back in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets,

Shannon and her boyfriend Nayim thought they'd found a place

to call home but a few months after moving in,

they discovered they'd been conned.

The flat and they'd been renting was a social housing property

and the tenant, Kibria Ahmed, was committing fraud by subletting it.

With their help, fraud investigator Avril Drummond is trying

to track down her tenant.

Hello, thank you for seeing me again today.

Obviously, we're now waiting for your landlord to turn up, OK?

So we'll just play it by ear when he gets here.

We've got the police on stand-by and they are in the locality as well.

OK?

Eventually, a man turns up.

But it's not Mr Ahmed.

Avril calls the police in and he is arrested, questioned,

but later released without charge.

The next morning, Avril briefs fellow investigator Mike Frost

about the previous day's events.

We asked him about Mr Ahmed.

He said, as a friend, he was helping Mr Ahmed, but he only

posed as the landlord.

He took the £800 a month and gave it to his friend.

He said, "I'm not taking any money for myself."

That's kind of him, isn't it?

The rent Kibria Ahmed was paying to Poplar Harca was just £292 a month.

Avril and Mike are more determined than ever to track him down

and bring him to justice.

They get a tip-off that he's in the area and then they spot his car.

"Kibs" as in Kibria. Possibly.

I need to speak to you, please.

Sorry? I'm from Poplar Harca.

Can you open the door please, sir?

I'm Michael Frost from the fraud investigation team.

His identity is confirmed.

Avril calls the police and Mr Ahmed, in the hooded coat,

is handcuffed and led away for questioning.

They are searching his vehicle at the moment which he said was a gift

from his mother, so we'll wait and see if they uncover any evidence

from there.

Later, the investigation comes full circle and Mr Ahmed faces his day

in court...

I feel justified in bringing the case to court. Too many people

believe social housing fraud is not a big deal and it doesn't really

matter, but now we will bring criminal prosecutions when we

deem them necessary.

..and what happens when he feels the full weight of the law.

The housing crisis is no longer confined to densely populated

metropolitan areas of the UK.

Here in the cathedral city of Peterborough,

there are almost 3,000 people on the waiting list,

nearly 400 of those are families in desperate need.

Adrian Chapman is the council's director of adult services and communities.

About a year ago, we were probably advertising about 40 properties

a week that people could apply for.

These days, if we get up to double figures a week, we're doing really well,

so we've got a lot of demand and not enough supply.

In 2015-16, the council spent more

than £1 million putting families in temporary accommodation,

including B&Bs and even the local Travelodge.

We will always accommodate people, albeit temporarily,

albeit sometimes in bed-and-breakfast accommodation

or, as we're currently having to use, a Travelodge.

There is no need for anybody to not have a roof over their heads.

We've got some nice chicken soup that grand-mummy made.

Then we've got some milk, haven't we?

We are struggling in here because it is difficult just being one room

with the three of us.

This young family, Joshua, Caroline and 16-month-old Phoebe,

are living in this single room in a hostel on the outskirts

of Peterborough.

This is all we have, basically. This is our room where we sleep.

This is our room where we do everything with Phoebe.

There's shared bathrooms, shared kitchen, so it's not ideal, really.

But, I mean, this is what we've got at the minute.

We can't really call it our home, but until we find somewhere

or the council puts us somewhere, this is all we've got, really.

Joshua and Caroline were both in work when their landlord decided

to sell up, ironically so the house could be converted

into temporary accommodation units.

Suddenly, they were homeless.

People think homeless, they just think of someone on the street selling the Big Issue and people

don't really think that people in B&Bs and hostels are considered

as homeless, but this isn't a home, as you can see.

It's just one room for the three of us.

It's a real struggle at times.

The shock of being made homeless whilst bringing up a young child

placed a huge stress on this young couple.

They are struggling to come to terms with their new circumstances.

Over here, we've got some cupboard space.

It's got some stuff in it.

And then we've got some of our food down here.

I think the worst of it is just sort of...

how cramped it is and how little there is, really.

Like, the fact we're having to put most of our stuff under the bed.

The upheaval has had a huge impact on this young family.

Joshua and Caroline have lost their jobs and they now need to get back

into employment as soon as possible.

But job-hunting without a permanent address is difficult.

I think getting the house is the first step towards

getting our lives back on track, really, cos that's another thing,

like, with the whole temporary accommodation,

it does kind of put your life on hold a little bit.

The longer you are in here,

the harder it makes it to get back on track.

Since filming, Caroline has managed to get a job in telesales,

but they are still living in temporary accommodation.

There's definitely been a fair share of our dark moments, I'd say, but I

do feel quite confident that we can only move forward from here, really.

For Phoebe's sake, I just want to get this sorted.

With property prices and private rents at an all-time high,

more families than ever are in desperate need for social housing,

which is why it's so very important housing fraud investigators continue

to crack down on those cheating the system.

Housing fraud for me is like any other crime.

It needs to be treated as a crime and it makes me in the job I do

extremely angry.

I think that they should be kicked out without a hint of anything.

If you're caught doing something like that,

you don't deserve to be in social housing. End of story.

I would say just one unit being misused like that is too much.

I think it's despicable that somebody can sit on a piece

of property to which they are not entitled.

Earlier in Tower Hamlets,

tenancy cheat Kibria Ahmed was arrested for illegally subletting

his social housing flat and pocketing thousands of pounds in unlawful profits.

Now, more than 12 months since his arrest,

Kibria Ahmed is about to face justice.

I feel justified in bringing the case to court.

I think too many people believe social housing fraud is not a big deal

and it doesn't really matter, but I think we've got to start sending

that message out that we are taking things seriously.

On January the 19th 2017,

30-year-old Kibria Ahmed pleaded guilty to two counts of fraud,

including unlawful subletting contrary to the

Prevention of Social Housing Tenancy Fraud Act.

That's the first criminal case that Poplar Harca have brought

for tenancy fraud, so it was quite a big case for us.

Mr Ahmed did his best to avoid our cameras

but he couldn't avoid justice. He was given a 12 month jail sentence

suspended two years and was ordered

to carry out 120 hours unpaid work

in the community.

I'm really happy and satisfied with the proceedings today.

I'm happy with the result we've got for Poplar Harca and getting

the message out that tenancy fraud is not going to be tolerated.

We'll tackle it head on and we're going to bring prosecutions

like this in the future.

After the hearing, as Mr Ahmed made a run for it,

not everyone seemed entirely happy with the proceedings.

INDISTINCT SHOUTING

As for Shannon and Nayim, the innocent victims who were

tricked into subletting Mr Ahmed's social housing flat,

they had no choice but to move out and are now flat hunting again.

I really miss this place.

We got engaged there. He proposed to me there.

On Christmas Day. We've got so many memories in this place.

Our friends coming round, my family coming here.

-Yeah, it was...

-It's horrible. It's all just been taken away.

The house where we've made a home, built up, just gone.

Everything gone. And now we are back to square one.

Tenancy fraud is never a victimless crime.

There's always a financial cost and a very human cost to pay.

But thanks to the tireless work of housing fraud investigators across

the UK, those who are cheating the system are being tracked down

and their properties are being reclaimed and re-let.