Episode 9 Saints and Scroungers

One of the things that makes this country great is that,

whenever we find someone in genuine need, we help them out.

Our welfare system is there to help when life deals us a duff hand.

My confidence had gone, smashed to pieces.

But then, whenever there's cash on offer

you'll always find someone who wants to steal it.

It didn't look like your average benefit claimant's house.

Those trying to sponge off the system

won't always get away with it.

We will investigate thoroughly and take the appropriate action.

This is the world of Saints And Scroungers.

This is Saints And Scroungers.

We expose the people who think they can make a fast buck

stealing public money from you and me, the taxpayer.

And we also share the stories of society's deserving,

unsung heroes and heroines.

The saints get the recognition they deserve,

and for the fraudsters it's payback time.

Coming up on today's show...

..a supposedly single mother is singled out for investigation

after she lies about her relationship status...

In the lounge of the house was their wedding photo,

clearly bride and bridegroom.

..and an ex-military man has his dreams of a job

on civvy street crushed by the economic climate.

I felt shattered and battered and bruised.

I didn't know what to do any more. I just... I was finished.

Having children when you're very young can be a lot to cope with,

and it's especially difficult if you haven't got

the support of a partner.

But then, luckily, here in the UK

we have a financial system that you can fall back on.

And some people really do take advantage of that.

Maxine Green, a single mother of two from Havering,

had her first child in 1982, when she was 16.

For years, the family relied on income support,

housing benefit and council tax benefit to get by.

But Maxine's situations wasn't unusual to Chris Henry,

a Benefits Manager for Havering Council.

Havering Council is a medium-sized authority.

There are approximately 100,000 properties in the borough,

of which 21,000 of those properties are in receipt

of housing and council tax benefit.

But not everyone is entitled to the benefits they're claiming,

and it takes Chris's vigilant team to stay on top of it.

We have seven investigators,

and an intelligence officer led by a manager,

who are responsible for looking into potential cases of fraud.

On this occasion, it was Havering's debt recovery team

that brought one particular case to light.

In 2010, a council's bailiff referred a Mr Michael Dowman

to the investigation team to look into

what didn't seem right with regards to his benefit claim.

It appeared to the bailiff that he was living beyond his means

as a person claiming housing and council tax benefit.

So, Michael Dowman was living a lavish lifestyle that didn't add up.

But it was all soon to come to an end.

Our investigations team looked into Michael Dowman's history

and did background checks on him and determined that he had been

receiving benefit that he wasn't entitled to.

They gathered the evidence together, proved this in court,

and he was actually prosecuted.

Another fraudulent claim stopped in its tracks.

But Michael Dowman wasn't the only suspicious name

to come out of the case.

It was looking like Havering Council had opened a can of worms.

During the investigation with Michael Dowman,

it came to light from his records that he'd been on holiday

with a person named Maxine Kemp.

Maxine Kemp - hold on, we have already met a Maxine, haven't we?

It was time to pass the case on for further inspection,

as it was possible this associate of Michael Dowman's

could also be involved in the fraud somehow.

Their investigator has asked to stay anonymous.

One of my colleagues was investigating another case,

and she came across the name Maxine Kemp in that investigation,

and an address in Bevan Way in Hornchurch.

She did some checks on that name and address,

and found that we had a live benefit claim

at that address, but in the name of Maxine Green.

Ah, Maxine Green, yes, I know her.

We've got two Maxines, then, one address and a load of benefits.

Maxine Green was claiming housing and council tax benefit from Havering Council,

and she was also claiming Jobseeker's Allowance from the DWP,

and in the past claimed income support from them.

And, because she had two children,

she was also in receipt of tax credits.

This was suspicious and needed further investigation,

and the file was passed to me to look at it.

So, Havering Council's investigation team

needed to get to the bottom of this mess.

The first thing I decided to do was research the address

and to research both names,

so I conducted data credit checks on both of the names.

I couldn't find any trace of Maxine Kemp on any of our systems

in relation to benefits or paying council tax.

Things were starting to look fishy.

So, Maxine Green was living with Maxine Kemp,

but only Maxine Green was claiming benefit.

Maybe there was a perfectly reasonable explanation for all this.

Maybe it was a friend or relative who just needed

a bed for a couple of weeks,

and happened to be called Maxine.

Through my experience with investigating similar offences,

I had the idea that it could be one of two possibilities -

one being that Maxine Green and Maxine Kemp were the same person

and that she could possibly be using another name

in connection with a benefit fraud,

or that it could be somebody else staying at her house

that she hadn't declared, and they could be two separate people.

There's absolutely nothing wrong with Maxine Kemp

and Maxine Green living together in the same household,

as long as Maxine Green has declared Maxine Kemp

on her claim for housing and council tax benefit.

Now, if you claim these benefits, someone else living with you

could affect the amount of money you receive.

Maxine Green had declared no other adults living in the property,

certainly no-one by the name of Maxine Kemp.

But their main investigator had one possible theory.

In my experience, a common benefit fraud

is what they call living together,

where a single parent bringing up children is, in fact,

living with a partner or their spouse, and as a result

they're receiving benefits to which they wouldn't be entitled.

I did suspect that that might be the case in this investigation,

as it is not unusual for people to use their maiden names

to disguise their actual married names.

So, it was possible one of the Maxines was married.

It was up to the fraud team to find out,

so they did further research and credit checks into the address.

I discovered that there was a male living there, as well, a Mr Kemp,

and that could either have been the partner of Maxine Green

or it could have been another relative of Maxine Kemp.

Again, at that stage, I wasn't sure.

So, on the record there was a Maxine Green, a Maxine Kemp

and a Mr Kemp at one address.

Exactly what the connections were between the three was unknown,

but not for much longer.

The investigation was about to come to a head.

I asked her if she was alone in the house,

and she confirmed that she was alone.

And a few moments after saying that,

a gentleman came down the stairs,

obviously dressed in his night attire,

and she told me that it was her brother.

For now, it's farewell to the fraudsters

and hello to the people we call our saints -

those in society that help others desperately in need

to claim what they rightfully can.

Setting up your own business can be a lot of hard work,

but if you're successful then you reap the rewards.

But if your business fails, it's far too easy

to start seeing yourself as on the scrapheap,

and that can knock a person for six.

38-year-old Chris Lewis, a husband and father of three children

aged ten, eight and six, felt the full force of this

when he made the decision to give up a secure military career for a new life.

I'd just done 16 years in the Royal Air Force,

eight years within the engineering environment,

working on fast jets, Chinook helicopters, things like that.

The last eight years I was on learning and development,

coaching and training, developing the new people

who joined the Royal Air Force.

A pretty amazing job.

But the exciting military career meant constant upheaval

for Jenny, his wife, and their children.

So, after a decade and a half, Chris decided it was time to leave

the RAF and set up his own business,

still coaching and training, but in a much wider arena.

He had a bit of money from the Air Force, some savings,

so that that was our buffer zone that would help us get through.

But the excitement and optimism wasn't to last.

The crumbling UK economy meant

regardless of the hours he put in searching for work,

Chris was unable to gain the employment he expected,

and he was facing financial ruin.

I've come to meet him, to hear more about this turbulent time

in his and his family's life, and his choice to leave the military.

-It's a big decision, though.

-Yeah, terrifying.

-Terrifying?

-Yeah.

I've given up my pension, I've walked away from a really,

really good salary, but it's just money. At the end of the day,

when I'm put in that box, buried in the ground,

my legacy will be my kids and my grandkids

and my amazing wife, and you can't put a price on that, I don't think.

-Tell me about the business.

-The coalition government took over,

and my business model got destroyed overnight.

Everyone's budget went... They all sucked in, and went,

"We've got no money. We cannot hire you in."

Financially, things started to get incredibly testing at home,

with £2,500 less every month coming in,

and the family reliant solely on Jenny's nurse's wage.

The first six months, we didn't expect miracles.

I mean, we knew it would be difficult,

but as it got to 10 months,

we started to worry a bit and we were thinking,

well, why aren't things picking up?

Then a year went and still there was no change,

and the whole time, we were relying on the money that we saved.

Night and day for a year and a half,

Chris touted his coaching business and applied for jobs,

but he was faced with constant rejection.

I was thinking that I've let the family down,

I've let my wife down, I've let all my mates down

who said I could be a success.

I just felt like I'd let everyone down.

It was all building up, and I just sat on the bed.

I never cry. And Jenny came into the bedroom and said,

"Are you all right?" And I just went, "No." And I burst into tears.

None of us really knew what to do to help him get out of that place.

He just kept saying, "I just want a chance. I just want a chance."

At the peak of the financial crisis,

it made sense for Chris to seek help from the state.

You could claim benefits.

Yeah, yeah. I would probably be classed as 'economically inactive',

I think is the term. A businessman who is not making any money.

So why didn't you claim those benefits?

To me, it was admitting to myself,

"You've failed at everything you've tried to achieve."

You've served the country for 15 years, you've paid in

in both ways, you know,

financially and in terms of what you have given to the nation.

If anybody's entitled to claim benefits, you are.

-But no?

-No.

When it seemed there was nowhere else to turn,

Chris was told about a Department for Work & Pensions-funded charity

whose aim is to help

ex-military staff adjust to civilian life

and find work.

When people leave the Services,

if they've been over four years in the Services.

they do get quite a bit of support.

But it isn't always what they need.

When they're under four years,

they don't get too much support at all.

Housing's an issue.

Money, obviously, funding,

you know, to actually live.

Training, cos coming out of the Army, they have a vast array

of training.

But it isn't always equipped for what's out on the real world.

I met with Remploy. It just happened to be on my birthday.

So I'm sat there on my birthday,

and everything changed that day.

People say, "What did Remploy do different to change your mind?"

They just believed in me.

When I first met Chris, I thought,

"Here's a chap that is so employable and full of confidence."

I thought he was full of confidence, till I had a conversation with him.

We do an initial assessment when we meet up with anybody,

not just ex-vets,

to get to the base of what their problems are,

and Chris had obviously faced some awful knock-backs

and had got really, really down.

Almost the best thing Chris did

was to finally accept he needed some external support.

-So you walked through the doors?

-Yep.

-What are they offering you?

They just said, "We'll be able to target your CV,

"we have partners we work with,

"we're connected to the local community.

I'd block a day off and go in, use their computers

and print off my CVs, my cover letters, they'd frank my mail.

It was brilliant just to have someone with a smile on their face

and someone else being a human being towards me.

-And it takes you away from your home?

-Yeah.

And everything that's here.

-All the worries.

-You're right.

So it gets you away from that

into a fresh environment

-where you can breathe a bit.

-Yeah, breath of fresh air.

What's more, the charity had contacts

that started to open doors for Chris.

Remploy have partner organisations.

I gave Chris the numbers of those organisations that might be able to help him.

I'd been firing out e-mails.

My old Wing Commander

forwarded my CV to a charity called Remount

which works with veterans

transitioning from leaving the Armed Forces,

I thought, "Yeah, thanks for doing that. Appreciate that."

I sent him a thank you e-mail, but I got a reply from the chief executive.

That CEO was Bill McLachlan.

After hearing about Chris,

he invited him to take part in a course called Remount One.

We teach them how to capitalise on all the experience and skills

that they've learnt in the military

and how to utilise those to

develop a second career in civilian life.

Bill spotted something else in Chris

that could help him take the charity to the next level.

I liked the way he was a very positive individual.

He was obviously not put off by the odd stumble here and there,

And he seemed to be the ideal candidate

when I came to look for someone

to run the Remount Two course.

So, after 18 months of struggling,

it seems Chris has finally found what he's looking for.

What does the future hold for you?

In five weeks I start my new job.

My new course director job for Remount.

Pretty exciting times. I've been handed a project.

He's never given a project of this size to someone in the past.

He's got total trust in me.

The way he's just kept on,

I think a lot of other people would have just given up.

I met up with Chris last week and we've set up a small project

for ex-veterans

linked in with Remploy,

and Chris will do the training for me.

My life went from nothing,

working really hard and getting nothing from it.

My life is so busy at the moment

I'm getting lots of training projects,

I'm getting phone calls all the time.

I can turn work down.

Chris' story shows

that even when life takes an unexpected turn,

if you have the right people there to guide you,

you still have a chance to get it back on track.

In June, 2010, Havering Council's bailiffs stumbled across the name

Maxine Kemp while looking at another case.

During the investigation of Michael Dowman, information came to light.

He'd actually been on holiday to Amsterdam

with a person named Maxine Kemp.

Michael Dowman was prosecuted

and sent to jail for housing benefit fraud.

So Havering Council thought it necessary to do further

credit checks on this Maxine Kemp,

in case she was an associate.

Nothing came up under the name Maxine Kemp,

but at Kemp's registered address there was a live benefit claim

under the name Maxine Green.

As a result of that,

the investigating officer decided to look further into the case

of Maxine Green.

She was, according to Havering Council,

a single mum of two, claiming income support, plus housing benefit

and council tax benefit.

If Maxine Kemp was living at the property

with Maxine Green,

and had been declared,

for council tax purposes,

we wouldn't have allowed a discount to be awarded.

They also discovered a Mr Kemp was registered as living at the address,

which shed further suspicion on how many Maxines really existed.

So it was starting to look like Maxine Green and Maxine Kemp

were in fact the same person.

And rather than being

a poor, single, penniless mum,

she was actually shacked up with a very supportive other half.

But Havering's investigator needed to prove this.

I conducted financial checks into Mr Kemp

and found a number of accounts

that were registered in his name at that address,

such as a Lloyd's Bank account.

He had loans at that address,

he had a mobile phone contract at that address.

And he also had a credit card

registered to that address.

That indicated to me it was a pretty permanent arrangement

that he was living there.

And that wasn't all.

I checked with the National Health Service who his GP was,

and their records indicated that Mr Kemp

had previously lived at an address where

Maxine Green had lived,

prior to moving to Bevan Way.

And that his current address was in fact at her address

in Bevan Way as well.

This indicated to me they had a long-standing relationship,

going back a number of years.

For two decades, Maxine Green

had been claiming benefits as a single parent

when in fact she'd been living with a partner all along.

But it wasn't just any partner.

As my suspicions grew,

I decided to have another look at her claim forms.

She was claiming for two children

throughout the period of her claim.

I decided to check their birth certificates,

which I did and I found

that Mr Kemp was the father of her children.

Yep, he was the daddy.

And looking back on Maxine's prior benefit applications,

Chris couldn't be more certain

that a huge fraud against Havering Council

and the Department for Work & Pensions had taken place.

Housing and council tax benefit is calculated

based on the number of adults' income

in the household.

You can see on this claim form

that Maxine Green has declared herself

but no partner.

Basically, there's no other adults

declared on the claim.

Maxine Green hadn't declared Mr Kemp,

so we were unaware of what his income was.

So the investigators had to look into his income and capital

to determine if that would affect

Maxine Green's claim for benefit.

So there was the chance that even though Maxine Green wasn't eligible

for council tax benefit as a single person,

she still needed housing benefit and income support

because Mr Kemp was not financially flush.

More detailed checks needed to take place.

I contacted the Department for Work & Pensions

to ascertain whether Mr Kemp

had been in employment during this period.

I found out he had in fact had employments

working for a security company in the past.

He had correctly paid his national insurance and income tax on those.

I also found out later

that since 2001,

he had been a licensed black cab driver in London.

Now it was time for everyone involved to hit the streets

in an attempt

to catch Maxine Green...red-handed.

It was down to Havering Council's

Benefits manager, Chris Henry,

to kick the whole process off.

I decided to involve the police,

and have them attend the property with our investigators

to confront Mr Kemp and Maxine Green.

It was apparent to me

that any offences would have been committed

over a very long period of time.

And that the amount of money involved

would be very large.

An early Christmas present arrived for Maxine Green

in December, 2010,

in the form of Havering Council,

the Department for Work & Pensions and the police.

As we entered,

instinctively I asked her if she was alone in the house,

and she confirmed she was alone.

A few moments after saying that,

a gentleman came down the stairs,

obviously dressed in his night attire.

Maxine Green's explanation

of this "gentleman"

didn't quite cut the mustard as far as the investigators were concerned.

I said to her, "Who's he?

"You told me you was on your own."

She told me it was her brother.

The tale was too tall this time

and Maxine Green was arrested on suspicion

of committing benefit fraud.

Then she and her long-term lover

were interviewed in separate rooms.

He immediately identified himself as Mr Kemp.

He explained he was in fact her husband.

And made no secret of the fact.

He basically denied any knowledge

that she was claiming benefits

and didn't know what it was all about.

He was also arrested

on suspicion of assisting her to commit the offences.

It was time to take a look around the family home.

The property was well-furnished.

It was well-decorated.

It had chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

The police conducted a search in all the rooms of the house

and found correspondence

relating to Mr Kemp being at the address

going back a number of years,

such as bank statements,

credit card bills,

mobile phone bills,

correspondence relating to a joint gym membership.

Later on, we even found a safe in the bedroom,

which is unusual with somebody on benefits.

And the whole demeanour and appearance

of the place was somebody

with the trappings of some wealth.

Although Maxine Green and Mr Kemp were definitely

a cohabiting couple,

there was one thing still unconfirmed.

I had no definite proof that they were in fact married.

However, in the lounge of the house

was their wedding photo.

Clearly the bride and the bridegroom

and subsequently,

I obtained their marriage certificate,

which proved conclusively they'd been married since 1992.

After interviews under caution,

both Maxine Green and Mr Kemp

were charged with making false statements to claim benefits

and failing to report changes in circumstances.

In April 2012,

Maxine Green pleaded guilty

to the charges,

and Mr Kemp pleaded not guilty.

Because the weight of evidence really was against Maxine Green

as the claimant,

Havering decided to drop the charges against Mr Kemp

and proceed with Mrs Green's indictments.

So charges against Mr Kemp were dropped

and he always maintained he knew nothing of his wife's claims.

Their marriage in 1992

meant that for almost 20 years

Maxine Green had claimed benefits when she shouldn't have.

And the total figure was shocking.

There was over £165,000-worth

of fraudulent overpayments

and this was made up of child tax credit,

housing benefits, council tax benefit,

Jobseeker's Allowance and income support.

She'd robbed Havering Council of more than

£71,000-worth of benefits.

The Department for Work & Pensions

of over £89,000

and had wrongly received

nearly £5,000 in tax credits.

There was only one thing certain for this scrounger.

In June, 2012,

at Basildon Crown Court,

the judge sentenced Maxine Green to 15 months' imprisonment.

What started as a simple holiday to Amsterdam with Michael Dowman

meant jail for Maxine Green

and a double whammy for Havering Council.

The jail sentence sends the message

to those people who are claiming benefits

that they're not entitled to

that we are willing to prosecute and incarcerate people

who fraudulently claim.

As soon as Maxine Green gets out of jail,

we will pursue her to get that money back.

So, after two decades of lying about her marital status,

in order to claim benefits,

Maxine Green has now at last achieved

the single lifestyle she lied about for so long.

Unfortunately for her, she's doing it in prison.

What a waste.