I came across a wonderful little news item about benefit fraud today on the BBC site. In a nutshell, a couple managed to con over £50,000 out of the welfare state through a complicated web of lies, subterfuge, and not understanding the meaning of the phrase "keep it on the down low". This came with the fantastic Daily Mail-esque middle-class bile inducing headline of "Benefit fraud pair's £100k yacht".

My favourite line in the article had to be:

His barrister, Francis Jones, said he was in the process of selling the yacht.

Which sounds a bit like a teenage shoplifter offering to return the Coldplay CD if the security staff didn't tell his mum. Of course, he technically only had to sell half of it to make back the money. Or perhaps do £50k worth of charitable work to clear his conscience. Although a more plausible reason for the sale comes later:

Judge Huw Davies QC agreed to postpone sentencing to allow probation officers time to prepare reports on their backgrounds. He granted them bail but told them releasing them was no indication of the sentence they would receive.

I'm guessing the bail amound was around, ooooh, £100,000.