UK Politics
Serial Burglar on £45,000 a Year in Benefits: ‘It’s Not That Much’
Stephen Nott, 61, has 30 convictions and gets about £3,750 a month in benefits. He says it’s “not that much” and he gives £100 a month to Labour.
Your vote
Should someone with 30 convictions be able to claim £45,000 a year in benefits?
News | By Matt, Editor
A serial burglar who gets around £3,750 a month in benefits says he has enough left over to give £100 a month to the Labour Party, the Daily Mail reports.
Stephen Nott, 61, from North Shields, has 30 previous convictions for 69 offences, 16 of them for burglary. The Mail says he is eligible for £3,000 a month in Universal Credit and £750 a month in Personal Independence Payment. That’s about £45,000 a year, and the Mail reports he has been on the same amount of benefits since 2022.
“I know it’s horrible to think about, that someone gets that benefit, but it’s not that much, is it?” he said. “People can’t believe it. But that’s just what I get. That’s the money they give us.”
3 commentsTap to readHe also gives to a donkey sanctuary and an animal charity. He says the money doesn’t go far once he has paid £795 a month in rent and £177 in council tax.
His benefits came out in court. Nott pleaded guilty to burglary after he changed the locks on a family’s retirement holiday flat at Chirton Dene Quays and moved in, Chronicle Live reported. When the owners’ son turned up on 27 December, Nott shouted that he was carrying out a “hostile takeover”, and the son felt he was squaring up to him.
He told police: “It’s not burglary, it’s adverse possession.” He had read up on squatters’ rights online.
At Newcastle Crown Court on Friday 6 November, Recorder Richard Stubbs said Nott had a “misguided understanding of the law”. He got nine months in prison, suspended for 12 months, a two-year restraining order and £800 costs. The family now plan to sell the flat.
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch shared the story with the words: “When I tell people Labour are the Welfare Party….”
Our view: a man with 69 offences to his name breaks into a family’s home and still collects more each year than many full-time workers take home. Then he tells us it isn’t much.
Should someone with 30 convictions be able to claim £45,000 a year in benefits? Vote below.
Read more: £4,485 per taxpayer – what working-age benefits now cost
Sources
- Daily Mail, 12 November 2026: Benefit amounts, Labour donation, Nott’s quotes
- Chronicle Live, 9 November 2026: Sentencing at Newcastle Crown Court (Moot Hall), convictions, squatting case, £3,000 a month Universal Credit
- GB News, 13 November 2026: Follow-up report
Main image: Byker Jobcentre Plus, Newcastle upon Tyne (Graham Robson / geograph, CC BY-SA 2.0), and Newcastle’s Moot Hall, where the case was heard (Ron Dixon / geograph, CC BY-SA 2.0), via Wikimedia Commons.
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Have your say
With these people and all others who are unemployed and claim benefits should after three months be placed on the local council books to earn their benefit money four days a week work, doing council jobs digging ditches. sweeping roads, clearing drains, cleaning graffiti, emptying bins, picking up litter in parks, you get what i mean….. work hard get a bonus, on the fifth day job center job hunting,,,, no turn up no money….. easy, assessments by qualified people if you are unable to work….. worked all my life and fed up with scrounging barstewards
This would be hilarious, were it not for the fact that it is an utterly ridiculous state of affairs.
No wonder this so-called ‘government’ – and our country – are becoming the laughingstock of Europe and, indeed, the World !
We’ve become far too complacent in regard to the governing of this country. How the hell do these parasites get into positions so that they alone become the only idiots for whom we can vote ?
WE should be choosing the candidates, NOT Parties. All the ‘Parties’ do is make sure that their ‘candidates’ will carry on the ‘same-old, same-old’ crap, decade after decade ; hence we never see any form of light at the end of their God-forsaken tunnel ! ENOUGH IS ENOUGH !
Your reaction
One thing stood out in this article. He says he pays £177 per month council tax. That is not true, if he is on those benefits he would pay no council tax. So he is a lier as well as a criminal.