A Romani Gypsy who came to Britain in the first days of relaxed visa rules this year has thanked English taxpayers for unwittingly paying for his new house back in Romania, for which he is siphoning off £60,000 worth of benefits being paid to him and his family.

Apparently dumbfounded by the remarkably generous state welfare handouts in the United Kingdom, Ion Lazar, 36 said: “It’s coming in benefits. It’s like free money, thank you England”. Because Lazar has three children and works part-time as a scrap metal ‘collector’ he pays no tax but is eligible for some £1,700 a month in benefit, all of which he sends back to his home country.

The money is being used to extensively refurbish his house in Romania, which when completed will feature three bedrooms and a large plasma television. The Express newspaper has reported the comments of Lazar, who will feature in a Channel Five documentary being screened tonight. He said: “I know the benefit I can make very easily in England.

“I am very happy because in England I make this money. What can you say – thank you England, she has helped me. I have everything now. I think in two or three years I am going to make £60,000, maybe more.

“All the money that is coming from the benefit and my work is going to Romania because I have a family”.

Another family featured in the programme used money sent home to Poland to establish a restaurant in Warsaw.

Although gypsies like Lazar come from Romania, they are often shrugged by their ethnic Romanian countrymen, and despite finding themselves on the receiving end of discrimination in other European countries are often treated better than at home. Breitbart London reported on the decision of a North-West Italian town this year who, in reaction to a crime wave on local buses after the arrival of a large gypsy encampment voted to establish a new, parallel ‘gypsy only’ bus route.

Speaking at the time of the decision one young woman, was was described as a “blonde haired Moldovan” spoke of the violence that followed a gang of Romani gypsies boarding the bus: “Everyone was attacked. They punched the ticket machine. Then they got on the bus and stuck a knife to my cheek… if it wasn’t for the bus driver, I don’t know how it would have ended”.