Couple Uses Welfare Benefits To Pay For $62,000 Wedding

Welfare benefits are once again the subject of outrage in the U.K., where a couple from Wales reportedly used more than $62,000 in taxpayer money to fund a lavish wedding.

They also spent “thousands more” on expensive cars and vacations, Wales Online reports.

Donna and Carl Honey-Jones were able to live large in part because they also had a lucrative cocaine dealing business to supplement what they were getting from the British government, the Daily Mirror adds.

The young couple were busted along with a cousin and with Honey-Jones’ father-in-law, Brian Harding.

Police raided 11 addresses in Swansea, Wales, in their efforts to bring down the couple. When they finally did, they found more than $1.1 million worth of cocaine and another $94,482 in cash.

They lived in a four-bedroom home and drove “top of the line” BMWs, the Mirror reports.

They both plead guilty to money laundering, and Carl Honey-Jones confessed to conspiracy to supply class A drugs.

Judge Paul Thomas took Carl, considered the ringleader, to task in court.

“Carl Honey-Jones, you were the dealer principal, and in your case it financed an extravagant lifestyle of foreign holidays, a lavish wedding and luxury cars…. The sums involved were in the seven-figures, and you, Carl Honey-Jones, were at the very top of that conspiracy…. Although it was lucrative, the operation that you led was inept and amateurish. Top-of-the-range cars and luxury brands in Penlan Road were bound to attract suspicion.”

Unfortunately, this isn’t the first welfare benefits fraud case to make international headlines in recent weeks. The Inquisitr recently reported on Naica Gibson, who admitted that she sometimes had to allow her four children to go hungry so she could afford to pay for her breast implants and, later, corrective surgery.

“I don’t see anything wrong in using my benefits for a boob job,” Gibson told the press. “I was determined to get my dream boob job no matter what, even if it meant cutting back on things for the kids.”

When her first surgery was botched, all she could think about, she said, “was all those missed meals for nothing. I just wanted them fixed.”

Gibson said she would need close to $8,000 more for the corrective surgery, something she believes England taxpayers should have to pay for since her need to take care of her four children prevents her from working.

“When I look at my breasts one is bigger than the other,” she said in comments reported by the Daily Mirror. “I expect the NHS to fix my breasts after all the stress I’ve been through.”

What do you think about people like this and the Honey-Jones couple? Should welfare benefits be more heavily restricted, and do you think the U.S. has an issue with welfare benefits abuse? Sound off in the comments section.

[Image via the Daily Mirror, linked above]