03/03/2014 Inside Out London

Hello, there. I'm Matthew Wright. You are watching Inside Out London.

Here is what is coming up tonight: Caught red`handed ` the council

house fraudsters cheating the system. A man managed to con the

council out of 23 properties, equivalent to a block about that

size. For his friends, family and those willing to pay.

Why these gardeners are taking on the Government to save their

allotments. I think 700,000s, or flats to this area is madness. In my

opinion, building houses on an allotment site is immoral.

And when brains meet brawn, why chess boxing is all the rage. The

sport goes back to a very old concept of a warrior poet, someone

who was both physically, powerful protector and hunter, but is

emotionally sensitive and incapable of strategic thought and planning at

the same time. With housing costs in the capital

reaching an all`time high, some unscrupulous council tenants have

been cashing in by illegally sub`letting their homes. It is

estimated that tens of thousands of London tenancies are being abused in

this way with scammers raking in ?500 a week for each property they

sub`let. The fight is now on for the authorities to reclaim all that

public housing from the private profiteers and this month sees the

launch of new data checks that should help flush out the

fraudsters. Mark Jordan joins the investigation.

Last autumn I joined Westminster Council on the hunt for those they

say are robbing the housing benefit system blind. The day I went to the

property where it had a swimming pool... We witness the thousands

being pocketed by those illegally sub`letting their benefit`funded

prime location homes. How many do you rent the flat for? ?900 per week

to live here? Anything to say about ?45,000 taken? Here in Westminster,

it would be fair to say we have been mugs and we have been mugged. Since

that film, welfare continues to make headlines with programmes like On

Benefit Street and Britain on the Fiddle. Now councils are opening a

new battle front. They want to recover thousands of council flats

that have been hijacked by criminals. It's bigger than housing

benefit fraud, the Audit Commission reckon English councils have lost

control of around 100,000 properties. I'm from Westminster

City Council. Could I come and talk to you? Our professionals on the

frontline talk about a fraudulent rate of about 10%. I hardly ever see

him to be honest. We have reports of people actually not even living in

Westminster. They just secure the tenancy and go back to Holland. I

have been out with fraud teams in Westminster, Richmond and Southwark.

The typical rent in a social home in London is ?400 per month. People can

rent it out for up to ?1,500, ?2,000 a month. I have had about three or

four different tenants. A determined fraudster could get away with

running half a dozen social homes. Homes meant for the needy, now

sub`let for profit by criminals. It is indicative of the welfare state

gone mad! I have been called here. The council have uncovered that one

of their flats is being let by someone in China. They have used the

internet to sub`let it and collect a market London rent from 6,000 miles

away. We found it in very poor condition and these are some

examples of the condition of the property. We managed to locate the

tenant in China. Repossessed and redecorated, Southwark are offering

it to Stuart, just one on their 20,000 waiting list. Got plenty of

units. My partner and myself, her daughter and my stepdaughter as

well. Where we live in one room, it is really cramped. Causes a lot of

arguments. There's a lot of people out there that do need a place. So

this is like paradise compared to where we have been living. People

like Stuart and his family are the victims of this fraud. Here in

Southwark, one of the largest housing fraud investigations is

coming to a close. A man managed to con the council out of 23

properties, equivalent to a block about that size for his friends,

family and those willing to pay. This is the man. He took a job in

Southwark's Homeless Housing Department, with not much more than

Tippex, a photocopier and a lot of front to create fake identities,

fictitious children and conned the council out of 23 properties. These

are some of the fake documents? He got away with it for years until a

beefed`up fraud team spotted his bewilderingly simple techniques.

These were fake children he was writing birth certificates for?

Yeah, they don't exist. This would potentially show somebody with a

priority need. The idea was to fake pregnancy to get people higher on

the housing list? That's right. These fake bank account statements

would have been used to show somebody's income, whether they are

in receipt of child benefit. And he was printing them off himself?

Absolutely. Last month, he pleaded guilty to misconduct in public

office and transfer of criminal property. Until sentencing later

this month, he's still walking free. Some of the flats are yet to be

repossessed. This has been a big learning lesson for us and has

helped us sharpen up our act. London is made up of 32 boroughs. But for

the fraudster, it's also incredibly handy. How have you got this

property? You don't speak English? In St John's Wood, these Westminster

investigators need to find out where the real tenant of a property is.

For years, they have had no way of cross`checking with other boroughs.

The fraudster could go on to a number of waiting lists and when

they got to the top, they received the property. Unbeknown to that

local authority, they may already have another tenancy in another

London borough. Now an interpreter has been called. How does she live

in the property? How has she got the property? They gave me the name of

someone who isn't the tenant saying that was his sister and this is a

family member. That is about all I could get from them. As soon as I

start to ask more questions, he claimed he couldn't speak English.

Lucky for Steve, this month sees the launch of the London Hub, eight

boroughs agreeing to share all their housing data with other financial

cross`checks. The aim? To track the fraudster. It might be a bank

account, a credit card, mobile phones, so what we are looking for

is evidence that somebody else other than the tenant is leaving that

footprint at the tenancy address, similarly the tenant is perhaps

leaving a footprint at another address. Last year, without such

data sharing, it took Westminster over a year to track down and

prosecute this woman. She was given this prime period council flat near

Hyde Park for just ?440 a month but rented it out at ?1,400. She

received a suspended prison sentence. Since then, a new housing

fraud law threatens two years in jail. Finally, we can show some

teeth with this. We are trying to get hold of your neighbour here. The

police come and kicked the door in. TV shows on welfare cheats have

triggered a surge of new tip`offs. They are reporting neighbours and

friends and family. Do you suspect that someone is sub`letting their

property? How long have they been there?

With around 500 homes now repossessed, Southwark has gone a

step further, buying ID scanners to flag up fake documents. OK, this

document has failed. So far, this scanner has flagged 7% of all cases

that have been scanned. So the service user doesn't get access to

those services. Another fraud avoided. But I'm told other council

homes are being lost forever as sub`let fraudsters increasingly cash

in on the Government's right to buy discounts of up to ?100,000. Not

just content with profiting out of this property, which isn't theirs,

they want to take it to the next level and own the asset. Under the

right`to`buy scheme, there is ?100,000 discount that they can

gather. In Central London, who wouldn't mind buying a property that

automatically has ?100,000 equity because of the discount? It's dawn

and the Richmond team have a tip`off someone is sub`letting and has

applied for a right to buy. We are trying to get hold of your

neighbour. When was the last time you saw him? The surveyors has been

around to do an evaluation on the property. When they have been round

to the property, there is a different gentleman who has answered

the door, stating he is paying rent to somebody on the other side of

London. Yet again, no`one is home. But with housing one of the

capital's biggest issues, the wake`up call finally seems to have

hit London Councils. You can't let the stuff continue. It's dangerous

actually because you lose the will and the respect of the people paying

for it. Still to come... Chess boxing

appeals to women as well as men. Zeena practices chess with friends

whenever she can, she trains for boxing every day. Her first

competitive bout takes place next month. Allotments are precious

commodities in the capital. And with the price of land being so valuable

at the moment, they are often the prime target for property

developers. But there's one group of allotment holders up in Watford who

are determined to save their land from the bulldozers. And with the

help of online technology, they are even planning to take the Government

to court do so. To some, allotments are just recreation. Two others they

are the last vetches `` stitch to write to an open patch of land. They

are jumbled up world sheds, water butts and plots, but they create

real communities that are often passed on from generation to

generation, exactly like this one in Watford. We have a terraced house

around the corner. My kids have grown up around here, they've

learned where fruit and veg come from. You have the old men picking

the pairs, they give them the pairs. That kind of quality of life in an

urban area is extremely precious. My husband liked so much to do the

allotment. After he passed away, I carried on to do it. I think about

him. He was my life. It becomes part of you. See the snowdrops there,

beautiful. Since 1908, local authorities have by law to provide

efficient # sufficient allotments according to demand. But more and

more are being taken for development, and that's what the

local council plans to do here. The allotments sit in the shadow of

Watford football ground, right next to the hospital and adjoining some

derelict land. The council wants to build on a large chunk of the land,

including the allotments, as part of a brand`new health complex, to

include more hospital facilities. This is a once`in`a`lifetime

opportunity to redevelop a hideous, derelict site and make a completely

new community for Watford. A community that includes homes, plans

to enable our hospital to stay in the town, jobs and quality open

spaces that people can live in and enjoy. This health campus appears to

be about more than just expanding the hospital. So what percentage

health care and what percentage housing will it be? Be indicative

master plan at the moment shows about 60% homes, 40% for hospital

use, but that could change. If we think of bit as pieces, those pieces

could move. We've never hidden our support for a new hospital in

Watford. However, the majority of the health campus is a housing

development. The number of houses that are due to be built within the

campus has risen from 350 to 700. So homes or hospital? The plans appear

to constantly change and could change again. Can the NHS paint a

clearer picture of what is to be built on the site? We are revising

our clinical strategy at the moment. We are looking at our services now

and for the next ten to 15 years. Regenerating the Watford Hospital

site gives us a big opportunity. I can't tell you exactly what is going

to go on those allotments, but the flexibility and opportunities it

brings us enables us to get the right clinical services in the right

place. The recent plans are showing the whole of the top layer would be

used to build a car park for Watford football club. The rest of it would

be majority housing. They have saved a couple of spots for a possible

hospital development. So the plot holders, believing that this will be

a housing development with a bit of hospital thrown in, decided to fight

to save their soil. All major developments like this

have to be passed by government, and this one has recently been

approved. So the allotment gardeners are taking the Government to court

in an act of defiance that could affect the future of allotments all

over the country. The law says the Secretary of State has to give

consent to any council that wants to build on allotment land. The

Secretary of State has a policy setting up when he will give that

consent. It sets out a number of criteria that needs to be met. The

Secretary of State has already backed down once because part of the

criteria wasn't fully met. One of its stability is to prove that the

allotments are no longer required. He says that can be overridden in

the name of the public interest, because that outweighs the need to

comply with this policy. That is what this case is about. Is it OK

for the Secretary of State to depart from the criteria to grant consent,

even though the criteria aren't met and the allotments on surplus to

requirements? There are a lot of allotment sites under threat from

development. We are trying to win our battle against the Government to

overturn this decision, to allow Watford council to build on our

site. So it draws a line in the sand as caselaw. So whenever any other

council wants to concrete over allotments in future, it'll give

them a chance to save themselves as well. We are replacing these

allotments. They will be provided for in what is the most fabulous

allotment across the town. Many allotment holders say they've put

their heart and soul into their plots and couldn't bear to start

afresh on a different site. It takes me 20 minutes to walk here. The

other one is two and a half miles that way. That's to the gate. After

that, you've got a mile to walk onto it on a clay soil that even the

farmer countries in the winter. Dad has been here for 42 years. As he

gets older, it's helping him keep his cognitive function, because we

hear from everyone we've spoken to in the medical profession, even

psychologists have told us, working on an allotment is good not only for

your physical self but for your mental health. There's a fierce

battle being fought here which will only end once the case goes to

judicial review. Council are so confident of victory that they are

going ahead anyway. We are carrying on with the plans because this is

just too big and too important to be put on hold. In fact, what residents

are telling us, and we've had a consultation where over 70% were in

favour of the plans, they are saying, get on with it. We know

about it will stop what we want is now to see some action.

To carry on the fight to preserve their plots and take it right to the

courts, the allotment holders need financial backing. So they have gone

far and wide for their support using social media. I have never done

Twitter before, I had no idea what I was doing. My first tweet was, help,

the council want to build houses on our allotment site. Really quickly

lots of people started sending responses and telling me who to

contact. The law firm itself had used crowd funding to fund a

different case, so they suggested we did it. We went on to the go fund me

site. It was a way people could donate money. We now have ?13,000,

which is an amazing amount of money. Support for their plight continues

to come in all stop as we were filming, money even turned up at the

gates. We are a group from Harrow, the allotment Association there. We

understand you've got problems with your allotment, under threat from

the local council. We were thinking of making a donation towards your

cause. Can I ask what kind of donation? We decided ?500 should be

a reasonable sum. Amazing! Thank you so much. ?500 is such a lot of

money. You obviously feel strongly about it. We do. We fought on our

own ground to save allotments. The worry is if you they are picking you

of the day, they'll be picking as of tomorrow. The allotment holders say

they want to protect all allotments. The council say they want to make

Watford a better place to live. Both sides are fully convinced that they

are in the right. Who knows who will win, but the outcome of this case

could change allotment history for Rever. It is hard to think of two

more contrasting activities than chess and boxing. You would think

they would appeal to two completely different types of person. Well,

think again because chess boxing is fast becoming all the rage.

A boxing match with all the razzmatazz of a big, showbiz event.

But this is no ordinary match. This is a modern event known as... Chess

boxing. The origins of chess boxing bow as

much to art and music as they do to sport. The martial arts movie the

mystery of chess boxing came out in 1979. And an album was brought out

of the same name. A round in the ring, a round on the board. Chess

boxing as a real`life competitive sport has a small but growing fan

base in the UK. Matches are held at the Scala and coaching sessions in

the city and at the Islington boxing gym. The idea goes back to a very

old concept of the warrior poet. This is something which is almost

mythological in human culture. Someone who is both physically

powerful, a protector and hunter, but at the same time is emotionally

sensitive, intelligent and capable of intelligent and strategic

planning. Your ultimate hero. Anthony Wright is a former

heavyweight boxer and a chess boxing coach. Boxing takes people off the

streets. I believe chess as well. Giving the kids something useful to

do. Guess, instead of gallivanting and up to no good. Chess and boxing

saves lives. The rules of chess boxing are pretty straightforward.

It is three minutes boxing followed by three minutes of chess, either

until your opponent has had enough of being punched or it's checkmate.

Chess boxing is catching on amongst city types. This man is an internet

entrepreneur and former city broker trying the sport out for the first

time. I was curious. I'd read a bit about it and it sounded

interesting, so I thought I'd give it a go. What sort of sport do you

normally do? Swimming, yoga and weights. I'd never tried boxing

before so I wanted to give it a go. But whether it is chess or any other

kind of boxing, it's a thrill worth the risk. Many doctors would like to

see all boxing banned. The British Medical Association wants the sport

outlawed at both amateur and professional level. The concern is

over potential brain damage from blows to the head. Not all

neurologists agree that the need for a ban, but most acknowledge there

are risks. There is a concern that the boxing is more popular, we will

eventually see more people with head injuries. And there is the risk of

acute head injury. Although those risks may be low, every time they

occur it is a tragedy for the person they affect and their families.

Boxing professionals believe it is no more dangerous than some other

sports. Insurers have two insure every youth club, boxing club for

every sports club. Boxing is very much down on the list, much lower

than things like rugby, cricket, football. Chess boxing is a sport in

its infancy but it is spreading out from London. Mike flavour, from

Brighton, took up chess boxing last year. He's decided to set up a club

locally and his target for new recruits is the Sussex University

chess club. He says there are similarities between the two

disciplines. It's about maintaining concentration and having lots of

endurance. So being able to respond to your opponent's attacks and not

giving up. From the training sessions I went to, they really

enjoyable. That's what motivated me to try and set up a club here. The

chess club has an keen and very serious players, but what do they

think of combining with boxing? Might you try chess boxing? Not for

me. Not enough strategy or thinking. I like the long game where

you can plan and take time. I'd definitely give it a go. I'm just

not really sure how well I'd be able to do the boxing part. Chess boxing

appeals to women as well as men. Xena, an artist living in Brighton,

is entering the sport competitively. She practices chess

with friends whenever she can, she trains for boxing every day. Her

first competitive bout takes place next month. She will fight under the

name Xena The Technician. I think I like it because you don't have two

punch in order to win. You obviously do the boxing but you can win the

fight on the chessboard. You've got your first match coming up, how do

you feel about that? Very excitement. I feel it's very real

now, this is going to happen. I just have to train as hard as I can. As

well as training on the seafront, she trains at the local boxing club.

Aren't you concerned about getting hurt? Well, not too much because

otherwise I probably wouldn't do it in the first place. I got punched in

sparring and yeah, it hurts, but you kind of get over it. What do your

parents think about you doing it? They are not very delighted! But who

exactly is chess boxing going to appeal to muster Mark is it the

traditional boxing lover or is it a fan of Kasparov? Can the cool,

calculated chess contest ever thrill those who like the heat of the

boxing ring? Have you ever played chess? When I was a kid I used to

play at all the time. Do you think you might give it a go? Why not? I

think it sounds really good. I think it's more mental, the chess. Then

you get in the ring and its more physical. You'd have to work on both

of them while you are training. It's a big night in Brighton at the

boxing gym. It's a chess boxing trial night that attracted quite a

crowd. Some new players flexing their muscles of mind and body. The

Sussex University chess club are squaring up. You might be good at

chess but I'm going to smash your head off in the boxing. And Zena,

who has her first competitive match at the Scala in London on the 12th

of April, is training hard for her performance. I like the crossover

from sport into art. Loads of artists have played loads of chess

in their time. I like the idea of not just looking at it as a sport

but also an art practice. Is it art, is it sport, or is it just

plain terrifying? Whatever you think about chess boxing, it's striking a

chord across the capital. The weird and wonderful world of chess boxing.

It makes you wonder what they will think of next. Judo and draughts,

backgammon and karate? The possibilities are endless! That is

all for the current series of Inside Out London. You can catch up with

previous episodes on the iPlayer. If you've got any stories for us, you

will find our contact details there, too. Thank you for watching,

Inside Out will return in the autumn. Goodbye for now.

Hello. The 92nd update. The Oscar Pistorius trial has begun in South

Africa.