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Chase McKenna is roaring round the garden on her £400 quad bike in £75 pink Ralph Lauren jeans, £40 Gucci T-shirt and designer trainers.

Soon she’ll pull on her £120 boots and designer riding gear then mount Princess, the £2,000-a-year pony she found online using her customised iPad and “persuaded” parents Kelly and Alan to buy her.

It’s pretty easy for this 12-year-old ­shopaholic to get what she craves.

“When I ask for stuff eight out of 10 times I get it,” she says with a shrug. “I’ve already had £150 this week and it’s only Tuesday.

"I like labels: Ralph, Juicy, Gucci. I don’t do Primark. Uh-uh! If I ask Dad for something and don’t get a yes straight away I give him The Face”.

She demonstrates an angelic look of daughterly devotion. “Then I say ‘Oh, Daddy, pleeese?’ And he goes, ‘OK, how much do you want?’ and I go, ‘Can I have £300?’ Each time I go higher.”

Elsewhere in a modest rented home in Bexley, Kent, sister Mackenzie, seven, is surfing on her own iPad in a bedroom packed with the girls’ elaborate beauty pageant outfits.

Brother Reiss, 14, is out somewhere on his £400 motorbike.

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But in the kitchen mum Kelly, 33, is staring at an empty fridge. Ignoring a pile of bills, she walks through the uncarpeted hallway into a sparsely-furnished front room and orders pizza.

Well, it’s what the kids want. “If you can’t put a smile on their faces, what’s the point of having money?”

That’s Kelly and Alan’s mantra, and the reason they can’t afford to buy a house, stock the fridge or go on holiday. And why Alan, 33, who has a building business, admits his finances are “out of control.”

But Kelly just laughs.

“Chase is so manipulative! She wraps him round her little finger. Sometimes I think I’ve created a monster. But she’s a great kid. They all are. so why shouldn’t we reward them?

“We are just really crap with money. We don’t have any savings and live from day to day. If we’ve got it we spend it. But we don’t care. We can have loads of bills but I still go to bed and sleep at night.

“We don’t have a regular income. Al might make £3 or £3,000. We struggle but we always manage. We were in rent arrears once, so we went out and bought Chase her horse. Stupid! But that’s us.”

“Yep,” says Alan. “My aunt told me once ‘You come into the world with nothing and if you go out owing then you’re up!’ ”

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Chase is one of four staggeringly-spoilt youngsters in a Channel 5 documentary called The 12 Year Old Shopaholic and Other Big Spending Kids.

She’s clearly a bright and articulate girl. But the way she manipulates Kelly and Alan with well-honed emotional blackmail will exasperate most ordinary parents.

A recent report said British mums and dads spoil their kids more because they feel guilty about spending less time with them. And this has turned kids into mini-mercenaries, expert at “pester power”.

But watching Chase manipulate it’s blindingly obvious that pester power only exists because of pushover parents.

“I love going shopping,” she says, showing off recent buys like the £175 pink Juicy Couture coat and matching pink shoes.

“When I go shopping I just want, like, everything!”

And she knows just how to get it. Before Christmas she had her own pink Christmas tree in her bedroom but had seen one she liked better.

“You don’t need another tree,” sighed Kelly. “What are we going to do with this one?” Chase gave her The Face. “Well, we can send it to Africa to the children who don’t have a Christmas tree?”

She got a new, even sparklier tree.

Kelly admits she and Alan get a hard time from their relatives. That’s why she won’t reveal on TV exactly how much they’ve spent on the pony.

But the tack alone topped £1,000 and food bills are £2,000 a year or more.

Spoilt kid has... £400 Quad bike £120 Boots £75 Pink Ralph Lauren jeans

“The horse eats better than us,” giggles Kelly.

“Our family worry we should be putting money down for a house. But Al and I just don’t have the worry in us. You only live once and whatever we do is for the kids.

"When I was growing up Mum worked for a chauffeur firm and we’d get picked up from school in Porsches and Lamborghinis.

“One day we’d have nothing to eat in the house, the next we’d be at posh restaurants. Feast or famine. Mum wasn’t a saver either.

“The minute my kids were born they were in designer clothes. I was over the top with Burberry and Armani.

“But I was only 18 when I got pregnant and wanted to prove I was a good mum even though I was a teenager.

“I thought the way to do that was to dress Reiss the best I could.”

Does Kelly never put her foot down and say no? “I haven’t really tried,” she admits. “I almost said no to the horse because I don’t do animals.

"But Chase kept writing on Facebook ‘I really, really want a horse. Please Mummy’. She said she’d love us forever if we got her one. So I said ‘Oh my God Al, we’ve got to get her a horse.’ ”

Isn’t that just buying your children’s love?

“Absolutely not,” says Kelly. “My kids are my best friends. I’m mum too, but they tell me everything. They know if we haven’t got the money they just won’t get stuff.

“They don’t start screaming and carrying on like vile brats.”

But what about making them earn some pocket money then save up for big things? “The do wait for things,” Kelly says.

“They are good kids. They work hard, they’ve got their heads screwed on. Reiss wants to be an architect. He’s got real vision. He says he’s not going to be like us, famine or feast.

“Mackenzie wants to be a vet and Chase says she’s going to be a dentist –as long as her dad builds her a clinic.”

The two girls are both regulars at local beauty pageants, which means more money on glittery frocks, shoes, make-up and tiaras.

Chase won “Essex Sweetheart” and they were both in last year’s Essex’s Next Top Model.

But now Chase admits she’s going off the glitter and glamour and wants to spend more time with her pony.

Alan explains: “Chase got to an age where she wanted to do all that girly stuff with Kelly and I felt I was losing her a bit.

“Then we got the horse and I’ve really got into it. It’s something we can do together. It’s brought us really close.”

Chase looks at her dad with real pride and affection. Not a hint of The Face.

“Yeah,” Alan adds: “I could spend ­thousands on that horse for her.”

The 12 Year Old Shopaholic and Other Big Spending Kids is on Monday at 10.30pm on Channel 5.

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