A Tunisian man, Adam Mejri, 46, has been jailed after assuming another man's identity to fraudulently claim around £160,000 in benefits and compensation, Southwark Crown Court heard. Mejri walked into an abandoned council flat near Grenfell Tower in west London, posed as its former tenant, illegally sub-let the property and claimed benefits in the tenant's name, before also attempting to access money intended for victims of the Grenfell Tower fire. He wept and begged for mercy before being sentenced.

The flat, on Hurstway Walk, had been locked up by the local authority in 2018 after police found two illegal immigrants squatting inside. Its registered tenant, Munir Altaib, retained an active tenancy despite having left the UK for Tunisia a year earlier. On 1 March 2018, Mejri attended the local neighbourhood management office claiming to be Mr Altaib, saying he had been in Manchester and had let the two immigrants stay there. Because of the property's proximity to Grenfell Tower, he qualified for a £5,000 payment from the compensation fund and tried to obtain it before his fraud was uncovered.