Jailed hate preacher Abu Hamza's home has a £40,000 makeover... paid by taxpayers

Workmen from at least three construction firms have already spent two months doing up the £700,000, five-bedroom council property in an exclusive West London street.

Astonishingly,

it is the second time in only five years that council bosses have approved expensive renovations on the property where the hook-handed cleric’s wife and eight children live supported by benefits worth nearly £700 a week.

Officially, the latest work is to underpin the property’s foundations after an engineer warned of subsidence.

The front has been painted an elegant cream and white to match neighbouring properties and parts of the interior have also been touched up.

Workmen have cleared the drainpipes, cleaned windows, restored the window fittings and installed loft insulation.

Builders have injected concrete to the foundations and mended cracks in the walls to secure the property.

Hamza’s family live in the only council property in the street in Shepherd’s Bush, an area popular with bankers and City lawyers.

Former Cabinet Minister John Hutton lived next door to the cleric’s family before putting his property on the market for £1million in June 2007.

The full cost of the work on Hamza’s house has yet to be calculated, but the bill for underpinning homes of that size can be £30,000. The extra work adds around £10,000.

It follows a taxpayer-funded £25,000 refurbishment of the home in 2005 which included a new bathroom and kitchen.

One neighbour, who did not wish to be named, said: ­‘People who abuse the system shouldn’t be able to keep their benefits. If you’ve been ­convicted of crimes, you shouldn’t be subsidised by hard-working people.’

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Hamza, 52, never officially lived in the home, which his Moroccan-born wife Najat Chaffe, 49, moved into in 1995 after claiming they had separated.

But neighbours said he was often seen at the house until his arrest, in August 2004, for incitement to murder and racial hatred. In 2006 he was jailed for seven years.

Hamza is currently in Belmarsh Prison and faces U.S. attempts to extradite him over allegations he tried to set up a jihadi training camp in Oregon.

On his release, the cleric cannot be deported to his country of birth, Egypt, after a court last week allowed him to keep his British passport, to protect his human rights.

If he also wins his fight against extra­dition, which is due at the European Court of Human Rights in months, ministers will have no choice but to allow him to live in Britain.

All the Hamza children are British-born, meaning they are entitled to support from the state, which would continue even if Hamza is extradited.

At one time, the family received a weekly income of £351 in dependant children’s allowance, £97 child benefit, £56 lone parent allowance and a £16 family premium.

The rent of £120 per week and council tax of £42 per week were also paid by the taxpayer.

Hammersmith and Fulham Council said last night: ‘We are housing this family only because they are estranged from Abu Hamza.

‘He has never been a tenant at this address and if he were ever to move in it would be grounds for eviction of the family.

‘The house is one of a scarce supply of large family homes and we, of course, have to do repairs and look after the property for future tenants.’