How we funded benefits bombers

THE brother of Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi has been found guilty of murdering 22 people.

Hashem Abedi had denied helping to plan the ‘sudden and lethal’ blast which killed or injured nearly 1,000 innocent souls.

One can only hope his sentence will be severe. Yet I remain absolutely appalled that benefits claimed by his family were used in the suicide bomb plot.

Consider that his mother Samia Abedi received more than £2,000 each month in welfare payments. This included monthly payments of £692 housing benefit, along with weekly payments of £302 working and child tax credit and £61.80 child benefit.

Even worse, benefits continued after she left the UK in 2016, taking her three youngest back to Libya. Did no one from social services ever check on this family? Obviously not.

Her terrorist sons carried on accessing her benefitsboosted bank account to buy a large £300 battery and tools to construct the bomb. The brothers also lived off this money, plus a £1,002.54 payment was made to Salman Abedi from the Student Loans Company.

The device that tore into teenage pop fans? Paid for and funded by taxpayers. Sometimes one despairs of the stupidity of this kind and generous country, and the easy portal through which the evil-minded can access our largesse.

Just when we needed him most, Monty Don is back on Gardeners’ World (tonight, BBC2, 8.30pm), mulching and seeding and being capable in his wellies, with his dogs Nigel and Nellie at his side. ‘It has been a long, wild and wet winter,’ he said in a trailer for the programme, as daffodils bobbed in pots and the bare branches of trees could be seen in the distance. I had a little sob at all this, and his comforting presence. I don’t really know why. We live in strange times, and becoming emotional at Monty being jaunty is just the start.