Why not give Essma a Harrods account as well as a £2m mansion?

Here we go again. A single mother of six is living in a £2 million London house courtesy of the mug British taxpayer. Essma Marjam, 34, moved into the four-storey villa earlier this month. Her £7,000-a-month rent is being paid by Westminster Council.

The house is close to Lord's cricket ground in an area popular with wealthy businessmen, bankers and celebrities, including Paul McCartney.

It belongs to a property company, based in Kenya, and boasts five bedrooms, two bathrooms, a double living room with leather sofas, two flat-screen TVs, a fitted kitchen and landscaped gardens.

Miss Marjam was already living in a threebedroom council flat when she gave birth to her sixth child five months ago.

Under rules laid down by central government, she is entitled to a bigger home. Since the council did not have anything suitable on its books, she went to a private letting agency.

Westminster says it had no alternative but to accept her claim for increased housing benefit. With other handouts, Miss Marjam and her family cost taxpayers £100,000 a year.

She explained: 'I'm separated from my husband. He's a solicitor in Derby, but I don't know if he's working at the moment. He doesn't pay anything towards the kids. Things are quite difficult between us at the moment.'

They couldn't have been all that difficult 14 months ago when Miss Marjam conceived her latest baby. That's assuming her estranged husband is the father.

Not easy to tell, actually, since four of her children - aged from 14 downwards - answer to the name of Benjamin while the other two are registered under the name Khan.



As usual, this case throws up as many questions as answers.

If Miss Marjam was already living in cramped conditions, why did she think it was a good idea to have another baby?

Are the Child Support Agency making any attempts to chase Mr Benjamin and Mr Khan for maintenance? Miss Marjam is happy with her new home, although not entirely satisfied. 'The house is lovely and very big, but I don't have enough furniture to fill it.'

That probably explains why vans from Argos and other big retailers were delivering to her address all last week. Who's paying for that?

Silly question. Why not cut out the middle man and give her a Harrods account, chargeable to the DSS?

Admittedly, the council is only following orders from central government. But how hard did they try to find her somewhere for less than £7,000-a-month? In so many of these cases, officials simply shrug and take the line of least resistance.

Westminster alone is forking out the thick end of £28 million a year to 800 families in similar circumstances.

The Mail regularly highlights the most outrageous abuses of an insanely over-indulgent system, including the Afghan family of seven, living in a £1.2 million house in Acton and costing taxpayers £170,000 a year in benefits.

Most recently there was the Somali family of eight given not one, but two, homes in Westminster, one worth £1.8 million, both equipped with statutory plasma televisions and computers.

Councillors complain that anyone who turns up at Victoria coach station and declares themselves homeless, no matter where in the world they have come from, automatically goes to the top of the housing list.

It allows ministers to salve their consciences and congratulate themselves on their compassion, while shovelling the bill and the social consequences onto local taxpayers, powerless by law to resist.

In the case of Miss Marjam, from what we have been able to gather she does at least appear to be a British citizen who grew up in this country.

She certainly has the same indigenous sense of entitlement as any other feckless single mother.


Miss Marjam's house in Maida Vale

What makes this Vicky Pollard in a headscarf stand out is not her hijab but the enormous size of the bill she presents every month. It is always going to cost more to house a family of seven in Central London than on some gruesome northern council estate, but that's not the point.

Why should an unemployed single mother of six be automatically entitled to a five-bedroom, £2 million home in an exclusive sought-after area?

Or a five-bedroom house anywhere, come to that? Taken to its logical conclusion, any woman who simply carries on having babies could breed herself into a place the size of Buckingham Palace.

Why should hard-pressed British taxpayers continue to subsidise a culture of fecklessness and line the pockets of professional landlords milking the system for all it's worth?

This story - and hundreds of others like it - is an insult to all those decent parents who live in much more cramped surroundings and wouldn't dream of asking the state for a penny.

It is no wonder their blood boils when they read about the Essma Marjams of this world.

Every time one of these cases comes to light, there is a brief outcry and ministers promise to change the rules.

We are assured that it will never happen again, but it always does.

And until someone in government summons up the courage to dismantle Britain's grotesque welfare culture, it always will.

That is an absolute disgrace! Why is it always fukkin Immigrants who end up in Mansions paid for by the tax payer? Does anyone know of a large English family living in such luxury, paid for by the suckers who work their ass off. Where is her Husband, force him to pay for HIS kids and HIS wife, why should decent hard working people have to lose out once again! I could spit nails when I see stories like this!!

Stick her in a four bedroomed council house and make her bloody husband pay the rent. Tax payers should not be responsible for the upkeep of these breeding machines.

Sack this Government while you still have a little left of your country to call your own.

If she is separated from her Husband...WHO THE HELL did she just have another damn kid with?!

This is the reason why BRITISH Pensioners are freezing to death every winter. This is the reason why BRITISH people cannot get proper healthcare on the NHS. This is the reason why BRITISH taxpayers pay one of the highest rates of tax in Europe.

Our Government preaches about equality but where is the equality in a Briton working his ass off to pay for an immigrant mother popping out kids every five minutes?

There is a hell of a lot of racial tension in Britain right now and it is all down to Labour's immigration policy. This isn't integration. This is separation. This is the separation of benefit scrounging immigrants from the same rules of life that apply to everyone else in this country.

It makes my blood boil!! I wonder if an English woman with six or seven kids would be housed in the same expensive home in an exclusive area? I think not, she would be crammed into a three or four bed roomed house on some sink estate and be told to take it or leave it.

The people who are footing her bill couldn't afford to live in a 2mill house, the hardworking tax payer in the main battles to get through each month and could only ever dream of living in a Mansion in a posh London suburb.

It is time for a clean sweep in Government, its time for Politicians with some balls to rid the country of the filth and mire it is sinking into.