A fraudster who illegally claimed £65,000 in council tax and housing benefits was caught out when he appeared in his local weekly – asking for information about his lavish house.

Peter Labazzi appeared in May in the Ongar and North Weald Gazette, in Essex, appealing for readers to help him confirm whether Winston Churchill had once visited his large home, even including his phone number in the story.

However, he was being investigated at the time for benefit fraud by Waltham Forest Council.

And the feature further confirmed his lavish lifestyle to investigators.

This week’s edition carried a front page lead exposing 45-year-old Labazzi’s antics after he was sentenced to 21 months in prison earlier this month.

His partner, 46-year-old Stephanie Tinworth, was also jailed for 21 months at Snaresbrook Crown Court after the pair admitting conspiracy to defraud.

Gazette reporter Rhiannon Evans said: “The council had known about him a long time. They had started investigating him over a year ago and he knew he was being investigated (when appearing in the paper).

“We weren’t at the court for the original sentencing but we received a press release from the council about the case a few weeks later.

“Then we went to our database to see if we had done anything on him before.

“We wanted to do it as a bit of down page but that’s when we found out what we’d done before.

“My colleague wrote the original story which came from a parish newsletter in North Weald.”

Waltham Forest Council is now applying for a confiscation order to recoup some of the losses.

Spokesman Sam Plester said property that could be seized from Labazzi included ‘his and hers’ Jaguar sports cars and a Bentley costing over £110,000.