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World’s fattest expat returns to UK for government payouts and free healthcare
| Published: | 18 Jun at 6 PM |
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The world’s fattest expat has now arrived back from the USA to take advantage of British benefits and the National Health Service.
After spending five years in the USA following gastric bypass surgery to help control his weight, Paul Mason has flown back to the UK for a permanent stay. Once known as the world’s fattest man and weighing close on 70 stones, the surgery resulted in his reducing his weight to a mere 19 stones at the time he left to become an expat living in Massachusetts.
However, even although he’d met and become engaged to a local girl, things didn’t go too well for him across the pond, ending with his being arrested last year for shoplifting from a nearby Walmart supermarket. Subsequently, his relationship broke apart and his massive food binges started again, almost doubling his weight to some 35 stones. After admitting he’d made a number of wrong decisions during his time as an expat and had suffered bad consequences after he’d let his visa expire, he decided to return to the UK as he could then take advantage of free medical care as well as receiving Social Security payments.
Speaking after his arrival to a reporter from a British tabloid newspaper, he said his decision had been taken after he realised he needed more help including operations on his knee joints and repairs to a herniated stomach staple. Locals in his Suffolk hometown weren’t exactly sympathetic to his self-made plight, saying coming back simply to get cash and free healthcare shouldn’t be his right, especially as his long-term care for his self-inflicted condition before he expatriated had been costing UK taxpayers around £100,000 a year for a number of years.
After spending five years in the USA following gastric bypass surgery to help control his weight, Paul Mason has flown back to the UK for a permanent stay. Once known as the world’s fattest man and weighing close on 70 stones, the surgery resulted in his reducing his weight to a mere 19 stones at the time he left to become an expat living in Massachusetts.
However, even although he’d met and become engaged to a local girl, things didn’t go too well for him across the pond, ending with his being arrested last year for shoplifting from a nearby Walmart supermarket. Subsequently, his relationship broke apart and his massive food binges started again, almost doubling his weight to some 35 stones. After admitting he’d made a number of wrong decisions during his time as an expat and had suffered bad consequences after he’d let his visa expire, he decided to return to the UK as he could then take advantage of free medical care as well as receiving Social Security payments.
Speaking after his arrival to a reporter from a British tabloid newspaper, he said his decision had been taken after he realised he needed more help including operations on his knee joints and repairs to a herniated stomach staple. Locals in his Suffolk hometown weren’t exactly sympathetic to his self-made plight, saying coming back simply to get cash and free healthcare shouldn’t be his right, especially as his long-term care for his self-inflicted condition before he expatriated had been costing UK taxpayers around £100,000 a year for a number of years.
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