THE dawn raids which led to the arrest of three alleged benefit cheats in Croydon have provoked a huge online response, with many people questioning whether the police were heavy-handed.
Council staff were joined by police in 'riot gear' - including protective helmets - during the operation in West Croydon, in the early hours of Monday morning.
They searched two households suspected of falsely claiming their marriages had separated, entitling the women to claim more benefits.
The story and images have sparked debate, with readers contrasting the scale of the police response with the reaction to the news, which broke on the same morning, that HSBC helped wealthy clients evade hundreds of millions of pounds of tax.
Mark McGowan, the 'artist taxi driver', posted a video about the raids on his hit YouTube channel, which is followed by 42,000 people.
In the recording 'chunkymark' cites the Advertiser's story about police 'gangs' with 'riot helmets, balaclavas and battering rams' raiding two homes of suspicion of benefit fraud.
"The police have sent two squads of police, with balaclavas and battering rams, and they are going through the door. Because they want the evidence. They want to catch them...in bed...together!
"It doesn't matter if there are children in the house they will be scared, they will be shaking, they will never forget the day when the police knocked at their door because that's how Croydon deals with fraud!
"Which is in stark contrast to David Cameron, George Osborne, the HMRC, the Crown Prosecution Service [and] how they have dealt with 7,000 potential tax evaders...hiding millions, hiding billions."
The contrast has also been made by a number of people on Twitter.
'Suspected benefit cheats raided by police Croydon' Will this happen for those implicated in #SwissLeaks#HSBCFileshttp://t.co/DXWVhj7h3b
— Ben Lucas (@benjameslucas) February 11, 2015
Suspected benefit cheats arrested in early morning Croydon raid << riot police? Is that necessary?! http://t.co/XBHR3hrFck
— Antonia Bance (@antoniabance) February 10, 2015
Croydon riot police early morning raid on OAP's for Housing benefit fraud WTF ! HSBC defraud billions not a fkn peep pic.twitter.com/tbjipWkD4g
— 45% VSS (@billyjYES) February 10, 2015
1,100 HSBC rich income tax thieves let off - but Croydon send FULL RIOT POLICE after 2 benefit fraudsters. http://t.co/fzC3htZ2ci
— RogueCoder (@RogueCoder250) February 10, 2015
The story has also prompted dozens of comments on the Advertiser's Facebook page.
LadyJean Duke posted: "MPs don't get treated like this when they rob the treasury. Disgusting."
Sade Chantal Shariff wrote: "Go and arrest the tax evading millionaires."
Peter Reeds said: "When will they do this to the people who really defraud the country? The big corporations stealing billions from us."
Stacy Humphris Blackley said: "There is a better way of dealing with them. I just feel for the kids."
