Having taken part in a documentary similar to this one, back in 1985 (TV Eye - Tees Street Isn't Working) in which the street I lived in at the time was deemed statistically to be the worst street in the whole of Europe for unemployment, I can confirm there is indeed a lot of "spinning" and exaggeration on the programme makers part. In the TV Eye documentary, it was claimed there was only one person in full-time employment, who was blind and ironically, worked in the Jobcentre. Two years earlier, there'd been another documentary of the area made by Granada Television (World In Action - On The Scrapheap) that gave the impression that most of the residents of my street were scavengers that lived off the local landfill. Having lived in that particular street for 36 years, I can tell you that none of those claims were true. Those TV companies just wanted to paint a gloomy picture of our street and I suspect the same is true of the documentary that aired last night.
Shortly after the TV Eye documentary aired, I can remember receiving letters from total strangers, well meaning but quite offensive all the same, asking me how I could possibly live in a street like that. One even suggested the suicide rate must be quite high in my area. The truth is the street wasn't like that at all and if the Council hadn't decided to pull the houses down in 1994, I'd probably still be living there to this day. They were the best neighbours you could ever meet who always looked out for each other. Basically, the point I'm trying to make is I wouldn't take what you saw in that documentary last night as factual. I agree there are people who claim benefits that they're probably not entitled to but these kind of documentaries are filled with so much BS it reflects badly on the genuine claimants. Let's face it, this documentary made the residents look like complete idiots. For instance, there was one guy who supposedly couldn't work and was on incapacity benefits, yet seemed quite capable enough to do odd jobs for a neighbour. Personally, I find it hard to believe if this is true, the guy would agree to take part in a documentary in which he pretty much exposes himself as a benefit cheat.
Then there was his friend who revealed how he lines a bag with a special foil he buys on the Internet, to outwit the stores security systems when he goes on his shoplifting sprees. And now he's telling the world and its dog his dirty little tricks of the trade? Then we see the two of them on the bus removing the security tags. Seriously? I felt like a lot of this documentary was "staged" even down to the police helicopter hovering in the sky, which I felt was just coincidence and not that it was there specifically for that guy who'd broke bail. Those helicopters aren't cheap and I'd hate to think the police would be wasting public funds on a nobody like him. But again this goes back to my point about those documentary makers exaggerating everything and distorting the truth.