News

THOUSANDS of pensioners looking to claim Pension Credit should be aware of a loophole that could see them lose out on benefits.

Pension Credit gives you extra money if you claim the State Pension and are on a low income.

Alamy

A warning has been issued to pensioners looking to claim pension credit.[/caption]

Over one million retirees get the financial support, with the figure expected to rise as more households look to claim the benefit to get access to the Winter Fuel Payment.

That is because cuts made by Chancellor Rachel Reeves mean only those on means-tested benefits – which includes Pension Credit – get the £300 support.

But now a fresh report published by the Social Security Advisory Committee has warned those considering applying for the support.

The document states that those claiming Child Tax Credit could actually be worse off financially if they moved to claiming Pension Credit

Child Tax Credit is given to parents or grandparents looking after children aged up to 16, or in some instances children under 20 if they remain in full-time education.

On average, the amount you receive per year comes to £545, but this can increase depending on the number of children you care for or if they are living with a disability.

But if you are already claiming the credit and then try to apply for Pension Credit, you will no longer receive the payments.

The report read: “There is a potential risk that some people may take steps to move onto Pension Credit in the belief that this would be beneficial, but “ultimately be financially disadvantaged.”

This is because they will lose their “transitional protection,” which is money the government gives as support to households as they move from other benefits to Universal Credit or Pension Credit.

This has been introduced as the government steams ahead with its managed migration process.

As part of the move legacy benefits – such as Tax Credits, Housing Benefit, Income Support, Jobseeker’s Allowance and Income-Related Employment and Support Allowance – are all being phased out.

All claimants will then be moved to Universal Credit by the end of April 2025.

The report, went on to say: “Pensioners currently in receipt of Child Tax Credit would lose their entitlement to transitional protection should they migrate to Pension Credit.”

If you are not claiming Tax Credits and are worried about energy bills this winter then you should consider applying for Penson Credit.

The support tops up your weekly income to £218.15 if you are single or to £332.95 if you have a partner.

It will also give you access to the Winter Fuel Payment, which is a one-off payment of £300 to help with energy costs over the winter.

What can you get on pension credit?

If you live with a partner and you are both State Pension age then your weekly income must fall below around £350.

However, if your income is slightly higher, you might still be eligible for Pension Credit if you have a disability, you care for someone, you have savings or you have housing costs.

You could get an extra £81.50 a week if you have a disability or claim any of the following:

• Attendance allowance
• The middle or highest rate from the care component of disability living allowance (DLA)
• The daily living component of personal independence payment (PIP)
• Armed forces independence payment
• The daily living component of adult disability payment (ADP) at the standard or enhanced rate.

You could get the “savings credit” part of pension credit if both of the following apply:

• You reached State Pension age before April 6, 2016
• You saved some money for retirement, for example, a personal or workplace pension

This part of Pension Credit is worth £17.01 for single people or £19.04 for couples.

Pension Credit opens the door to other support, including housing benefits, cost of living payments, council tax reductions and the Winter Fuel Payment.

Claims for Pension Credit also open doors to a number of freebies and discounts.

For example, Pension Credit claimants over 75 qualify for a free TV licence worth up to £169.50 a year.

Claims for the benefit also provide eligibility to £25 a week cold weather payments and the £150 warm home discount.

Help with managed migration

Anyone moving from tax credits to Universal Credit can find help in a number of ways.

You can visit your local Jobcentre by searching at find-your-nearest-jobcentre.dwp.gov.uk/.

There’s also a free service called Help to Claim from Citizen’s Advice:

• England: 0800 144 8 444
• Scotland: 0800 023 2581
• Wales: 08000 241 220

You can also get help online from advisers at citizensadvice.org.uk/about-us/contact-us/contact-us/help-to-claim/.

HE was the knight in shining armour who rode in to save Hollywood’s most prestigious studio from collapse.

But within weeks of Giancarlo Parretti buying MGM for $1.3billion in 1990, with a vow to “make the lion roar again”, he had run half of Tinseltown into the ground.

AP

Giancarlo Parretti claimed he would make the lion roar again when he took over MGM studios[/caption]

Rex

BBC

Former PA Arlene Howard told The Sun he was an entertaining buffoon[/caption]

Getty

Scott Baio and Pamela Anderson attend the National Council of Aging Honors Giancarlo Parretti on February 28, 1991[/caption]

Film production shuddered to a halt, cheques to screen legends including Dustin Hoffman and Sylvester Stallone bounced and the 17th movie in the money-spinning James Bond franchise was put on ice – effectively killing off Timothy Dalton’s stint as 007.

Parretti presided over mass sackings while surrounding himself with attractive young women – once pulling a director off a John Candy movie to demand he screen-test a former Miss Universe who he had just met on a whirlwind tour of Los Angeles.

The flamboyant Italian was later revealed to be a charlatan with suspected links to the Mafia, who went on the run after being arrested on suspicion of cooking the books.

Parretti’s colourful stories – from being abandoned as a baby on church steps to befriending Churchill and Pope John Paul II – seem more fantasy than reality.

His $9million 14-bed mansion in Beverly Hills, where he installed wife Maria and their three children, was heaving with masterpieces by the likes of Goya and Picasso. He drove around in a $200,000 Rolls Royce and flew between continents in a $20million Gulf Jetstream.

He loved to dance at his own LA nightclub, Tramps of London, and hold court in the Italian restaurant, Madeo, which he also owned.

Parretti also bankrolled a throng of wannabe actresses, including a Miss Universe runner-up who was paid more than $387,000 over two years despite not landing a screen role.

The Hollywood boss gave them around $1million worth of jewellery – all with Credit Lyonnais loans obtained by bribery, according to documents filed by the FBI.

Using his privileged position, he also cosied up to megastars and allegedly tried to lure Meryl Streep into bed at the Beverly Hills Wiltshire – but she laughed him out of the room.

With limited English and even less knowledge of movies, his financial success was a mystery – although he owned a string of hotels, insurance companies and the indie film company Cannon Films.

Rex

Getty

Parretti was desperate to bed actress Meryl Streep but she laughed off his advances[/caption]

Getty

Stars like Sylvester Stallone saw their cheques bounce under his dismal leadership[/caption]

The incredible story is told in the BBC4 documentary, The Man Who Definitely Did Not Steal Hollywood, which remarkably hears from the on-the-run fraudster himself.

In an exclusive interview his former PA, Arlene Howard, tells The Sun how she had to brush the clueless “buffoon” up on classic movies before he spoke to the press, and manage his increasingly flamboyant image.

“For his first press conference, when he took over MGM, I thought, wouldn’t it be great to have a lion on a stool, totally trained and for Giancarlo to be handed the reins,” she recalls.

“But he was scared to get near the lion.”

She adds: “I laughed and laughed throughout my time with him.”

‘Rags to riches’

Although evasive about his business dealings, Parretti loves telling his rags to riches story, from humble beginnings in the small town of Orvieto, Italy.

“I was abandoned at night, as a little baby, just a few hours old, bundled up in rags and left on the steps of the church,” he says.

“I was taken to an orphanage where I lived for five years. The woman who became my mamma really wanted a daughter but when she arrived at the orphanage I clutched onto her, so she adopted me. No one can choose their mamma but I chose mine.”

As a young man he worked as a dish washer in restaurants before becoming a waiter and leaving home.

“I wanted to go around the world. First, I worked on ships – the Queen Elizabeth, the largest ship in the world. Afterwards I lived in London for three years and in the restaurant at the Savoy Hotel where I worked, Churchill usually came for lunch.

“After I was there for a week Churchill told the manager that he wanted me to serve him. The manager said I didn’t speak good English but Churchill replied, ‘Don’t worry. He’s very friendly.’

“Later, I opened a restaurant on Carnaby Street. By the time I came back (to Italy), I had a lot of money.”

Somehow, he managed to buy a hotel in Pesaro, followed by another in Rome, a football club and a chain of 300 hotels in Spain.

‘Harem of models’

Parretti’s move into films was typically unlikely, explaining he was commissioned by a cardinal of France to remake the classic 1943 film, The Song of Bernadette, about a Catholic saint.

He bizarrely explains the Church wanted it remade because one of the actresses had become a porn star – and that his 1988 version of the film was so moving that it made the Pope cry.

The documentary points out that none of the actors in the original film were ever porn stars.

Another ‘business opportunity’ came with the purchase of the ailing Cannon Films, known for its action-packed exploitation films in the 1980s, including Hell Squad, which featured machine-gun toting, bikini-clad women described as ‘curvacious commandos.’

The company’s top stars included the likes of Chuck Norris, Jean Claude Van Damme and Sylvester Stallone.

An FBI report later detailed how Parretti put a “harem” of young women under contract as “actresses” to work as his mistresses while at Cannon.

It was his time at the studio that provided the platform for the audacious leap to gain control of MGM.

Bizarre bet

BBC

Parretti claimed half the money used to buy the studios was his but authorities later found out it was a lie[/caption]

The move, as Parretti tells it, was a result of a bet between former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and Gianni Agnelli, then Head of Ferrari, Fiat and Juventus F.C.

He claims he met the two powerful men in a restaurant in New York in 1990 after Agnelli noticed he was dining alone and invited him over to join them.

He says: “That morning, The New York Times had published that MGM was for sale. The price was $1,350 million. Agnelli said to Kissinger, ‘See this man here, so young? If he wants, he can buy MGM.’

“Kissinger laughed, saying, ‘That’s impossible.’ And as a joke, Agnelli said, ‘Let’s bet on it. If within six to eight months from now Parretti buys MGM, you’ll buy dinner for everyone.’

“It was a gamble because there was no guarantee I could put together enough money.”

At the time, the once-proud studio – which produced such classics as Singing In The Rain, The Wizard of Oz and Gone With The Wind and boasted “more stars than there are in heaven” – was on the brink of financial collapse.

Over the next nine months of negotiation, Parretti says he stumped up half of the money with the French bank Credit Lyonnais supplying the rest.

This is contradicted by Jeff Isaacs, former federal prosecutor in the US who later investigated the deal.

He says virtually all the money to buy MGM came from Credit Lyonnais, who loaned it to Parretti.

Tried to ‘bribe’ president

Getty

Parretti managed to secure a meeting with President Bush, which ended with him being removed[/caption]

“During the negotiating period I managed to arrange for Giancarlo to meet President George Bush at the Oval Office,” says Parretti’s PA, Arlene.

“On the way there, I told him not to say anything about buying MGM. He assured me he wouldn’t but as soon as he saw the President he said, in perfect English, ‘I just completed the deal with MGM. If you want to buy any stock, that’s fine and you don’t have to pay me back.’

“With that, two guys appeared and carried him out of the White House.

“Bush’s Press Secretary, Marlin Fitzwater, said to me, ‘Did he just try to bribe the President of the United States in the Oval Office?’ I said, ‘Sounds like it, doesn’t it?’”

The purchase hit the headlines with media outlets questioning who Parretti was and how he had put the deal together, sparking rumours that he was involved with the Mafia or using Libyan money via connections with Gaddafi.

He denied it all, boasting, “I will make the lion roar again.”

Doubling down, he even hosted a glitzy ‘coming-out’ party as the new toast of Hollywood, organising a black-tie ball attended by the likes of Scott Baio, Pamela Anderson and Bond it-girl Britt Eklund.

“He knew absolutely nothing about film. I got a call from a journalist in Milan asking what Giancarlo’s favourite movie was.

“I put the guy on hold while I asked him and he just shrugged. And I said, ‘What about Gone With the Wind?’ He said, ‘Okay. What is Gone With the Wind?’ So I had to tell him the whole story in four minutes, in Italian, with a guy holding on from Milan.”

In a subsequent TV interview, Parretti is seen gushing about his love of Gone With The Wind.

He said: “ I went to see it ten times. I was interested in the story and one can recognise oneself in that film, which is so important and so dramatic.”

Fleeing the country

Within weeks of the MGM deal, things began to fall apart.

Unable to pay debts and payments to its stars, he cut costs by quickly firing 270 employees. Confidence was at rock bottom, film production ceased and Credit Lyonnaise tried to oust him, filing a law suit for ‘serious mismanagement.’

Bond producers were so spooked by his dismal leadership that they halted development on the latest project, bringing a premature end to the era of Timothy Dalton, who had initially agreed to film a third movie as 007 following 1989’s Licence to Kill.

Parretti also faced an FBI investigation for alleged financial irregularities amid allegations he bribed Credit Lyonnais staff to authorise the unsecured loans.

California Superior Court Judge Irving Shimer later observed that the French bankers weren’t “interested in making movies. They were interested in getting girls on the yacht…That’s why bankers come to Hollywood – lots and lots of pretty girls.”

Parretti was arrested and remained in jail for ten days while negotiations to have him extradited to France took place, before being released on condition that he surrender his passport and remain in the country.

But he fled across the border to Mexico and made his way back to Italy just before he was due to be sentenced for fraud and perjury. In his absence, Parretti was sentenced to four years in prison in France.

“I think there’s some truth to his colourful stories, but probably only about ten per cent,” says Arlene.

“Yes, he had all these masterpieces from famous artists such as Caravaggio, Goya, Picasso. The only trouble was, the paint was still wet on them!”

Getty

MGM was famous for the Wizard of Oz which starred Judy Garland[/caption]

BBC

Parretti bought businesses in Italy and Spain as well before it all came crashing down[/caption]

BRITS have revealed the oddest ways they brighten up their day – from browsing estate agent websites to popping bubble wrap and weeding the garden.

A poll of 2,000 adults found 82 per cent have at least one ‘unusual’ method for lifting their spirits.

Getty

Brits need to boost their mood four times per week, according to the study[/caption]

Other unorthodox techniques include telling ‘dad jokes’, browsing estate agents’ websites, and talking to the dog.

While slightly less out-there methods include dancing around the house when everyone else is out, cleaning and tidying, and sorting out the recycling.

Nearly three-quarters (72 per cent) went on to say the world is a better place when everyone can express a unique side of themselves.

The research was commissioned by Kinder Bueno, which has also created a tool which suggests quirky ways for users to brighten up their day.

Andrea Longobardi at Kinder said: “We’re delighted to see the inventive ways Brits elevate their days and celebrate the unique moments in their lives that help to make their day extra special.

“Whether it’s singing in the car or dancing around the house, we want to encourage enjoying those elevated moments, turning a basic day into a brighter one.”

The research went on to find on average Brits need to boost their mood four times per week.

With 58 per cent adding they need to find ways to bring more colour to their day more than usual at the moment.

Of these, 45 per cent need a pick-me-up when they are feeling run down, and 41 per cent require a lift when the weather is gloomy.

While four in 10 need their day brightened on the occasions they are lacking sleep, according to the OnePoll.com data.

After employing their unusual mood-boosting tactics, 83 per cent claim it makes them feel happier.

And 86 per cent believe it helps contribute to their overall happiness, with 82 per cent admitting it also helps to reduce their levels of stress.

Nearly two in five (37 per cent) have added new unusual techniques to their repertoire over the years – as it makes 49 per cent feel totally unique.

While 74 per cent are never embarrassed about any of their unusual ways to brighten their day.

It comes after more than half of voters believe an increase in employers paying more National Insurance would be a “tax on working people”, an exclusive poll reveals.

And a pub garden smoking ban would not be backed by a majority of Brits, a fresh poll has revealed.

The star also opened up about her Hysteria wig and playing a character with an "inner conflict."

Game 4 is priced closely in the betting markets as a pair of starters who have not pitched in several weeks will make their first postseason starts.

At this year’s Al Smith charity dinner, Vice President Kamala Harris got a little help from Mary Catherine Gallagher. Ahead of a pre-recorded speech, the veep performed a comedy bit alongside Molly Shannon’s ’90s-era Catholic school girl character from “Saturday Night Live.” Watch the full video here. 

A photo montage of England’s King Charles III and Queen Camilla was illuminated onto the Sydney Opera House sails to mark their arrival on Oct. 18. The royal couple are embarking on a six-day visit in Australia, the first visit by a reigning monarch since 2011.

At this year’s Al Smith dinner in New York City, former President Donald Trump called out Vice President Kamala Harris for not being there in person for the Catholic charity event. “You got to go to the dinner. Otherwise bad things are going to happen from up there,” Trump joked, pointing up to the heavens....

The breakout star's gold band has been a staple accessory since he attended the 2024 Emmys in September to support his twin brother, TV editor Payton Koch.