£2m benefits for dad of 10

Jobless Keith Macdonald sparked outrage last night after it emerged that he does not see any of his children and does not give any money to their mothers, meaning taxpayers will have to foot the massive £2million benefits bill.

In a damning example of Shameless Britain, Macdonald, whose ninth and tenth babies are due next year, whinged: “Why should I pay a penny for them?”

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Just £5 a week is deducted from his incapacity benefit, which he claims for a bad back, to go towards the children’s upkeep. Last night critics condemned 25-year-old Macdonald, who has been branded the “Incapacity Casanova”.

Matthew Sinclair, director of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers will be furious that their money is being spent supporting one man to have so many children, with so many different women, without any apparent attempt to provide for them himself.

“This is a disgusting abuse of a benefits system that is supposed to look after those who have genuinely fallen on hard times. It is shocking that someone can be so indifferent to their responsibilities.”

Macdonald, from Tyne and Wear, lives with his friend Jason Burdis in a council flat in Washington.

Sprawled on the sofa, swigging from a can of lager, and watching his flatscreen TV, Macdonald said: “None of the mothers will let me see any of my kids for some reason. If I can’t see them, why should I pay a penny for them?”

He added: “I always have to have a can to get myself up and started in the morning.” But even Burdis criticised him, saying: “Keith is a bully, plain and simple. He gets these girls pregnant and then he dumps them. He doesn’t give a damn about them.”

Each of Macdonald’s children is eligible for weekly child benefit of up to £20; the mothers get up to £64.30 income support if they do not work. In addition, they may be entitled to housing benefit, council tax benefit, free school meals, free prescriptions and other payments.

The cost to the taxpayer for all 10 children would add up to an estimated £2million by the time the children are 18.

Macdonald had already found infamy by fathering eight children with eight women, one more than the central character of Shameless, Channel 4’s comedy about benefits scroungers. Now two more women say he has got them pregnant. The binman’s son was yesterday named by Sarah Armstrong, a 19-year-old beautician in Chester-le-Street, as the father of her unborn child.

Armstrong, virtually the only one of Macdonald’s girlfriends who is in work, said: “We’ve been seeing each other about three or four times a week. He even moved his Xbox in, but he took that away last week.”

She displayed a text message that she received from Macdonald on August 22, soon after she discovered she was pregnant. It reads: “I told ya i wud not leave ya hun and i am trying 2 give ya wot ya want. x”.

Macdonald, who denies any wrongdoing, claimed yesterday he did not know Armstrong, even though she has photographs of him in her house.

Armstrong claims Macdonald told her they would get married. “If he’s broken up with me, he hasn’t told me yet – I need to find out the truth,” she said last night. “I’m six weeks pregnant. I’m not sure why he’s saying he doesn’t know me now.”

However, another girl, Danielle Little, 24, who is unemployed, says she is expecting a child with Macdonald – his tenth – having found out earlier this month.

Danielle said: “He’s had a bad past but people have to forget about that and give him a second chance. I love him to bits.”

She says the couple are planning to move into a refurbished two-bedroom cottage in Newcastle in two weeks, at the expense of taxpayers. Stacey Barker, 22, who is mother to Macdonald’s third of five daughters, was furious to hear he has got more women pregnant.

She said: “Men like him should be made to have the snip, or be fined or even jailed. They’re costing the Government millions of pounds. Keith has told me that he has 12 kids.”

Macdonald’s last fiancee also reacted with fury. Clare Bryant, 21, mother of a five-month-old said: “The next time I see him I am going to give him the Spanish Inquisition. Nothing he does shocks me, I am used to his behaviour.” They were engaged, but split up in January.

Macdonald says he first had sex at the age of 10 and boasts that he has since slept with 40 women – claiming to be “a sex god on £40 a week”.

He fathered his first child at the age of 15 when his then girlfriend, Michelle Purvis, now 32, gave birth to a daughter, Jamie Leigh, who is now 10. When they split up he met Charlotte Anderson, now 25, who had a daughter, Kady, now eight.