LONDON -- A father was sentenced to life in jail Thursday for starting a fire that killed six of his own children as part of a disastrous plot to frame his former mistress, in a horrific case that has prompted an emotional debate about Britain’s welfare system.

Rui Vieira / AP

Mick Philpott and wife Mairead.

Mick Philpott, his wife, Mairead, and his friend Paul Mosley, were convicted of manslaughter for starting a house blaze that took the lives of the couple’s children Jayden, 5, Jesse, 6, Jack, 8, John, 9, Jade, 10, and 13-year-old Duwayne.

Unemployed Philpott – a father of 17 children by five women – intended to “rescue” his family and blame the fire on his mistress, Lisa Willis, 28, who was seeking court custody of the five children they had together.

When his plan went tragically wrong, the 56-year-old lied to protect himself - even shedding crocodile tears at a police news conference. But detectives quickly uncovered the truth.

The shocking case, in the central England town of Derby, made for emotive headlines in Britain’s newspaper’s Wednesday. “Pure evil” said The Mirror, while The Sun on its front page called Philpott a “child-killing b*****d.”

Steve Cotterill, Assistant Chief Constable of Derbyshire police, said the fire plot was “the most evil act I have ever known” and had led to “a complete and utter waste of six young and innocent lives.”

Reviled figure
Remarkably, Philpott was already a hate figure in Britain, reveling in notoriety on television where he was portrayed as a real-life version of the social underclass featured in the drama series, "Shameless".

He was pilloried for demanding a larger government home for his rapidly-expanding family. He had appeared on the daytime TV tabloid talk show, “The Jeremy Kyle Show,” alongside both his wife and his mistress to face demands that he have a vasectomy.

Both women for many years lived with Philpott, sharing his affections. Willis slept in a camping trailer parked on the tiny front lawn, while wife Mairead stayed in the house. On more than one occasion they were simultaneously pregnant.   

His deceit over the subsequent tragedy was unmasked when detectives noted his behavior did not fit the pattern of a grieving parent – he was observed singing Elvis’ Suspicious Minds during a karaoke session in a local bar – and began monitoring phone calls with his co-accused.

Mark St George / Rex Features via AP

The parents who killed six children in a house fire were sentenced at Nottingham Crown Court, England, Thursday.

Philpott had a history of horrific domestic violence and bullying, but in this instance his crime was motivated by money: Already the recipient of welfare checks owing to his unemployment, Philpott was entitled to further state payments for each of the children under the roof of his rented public home.

In total, he was in legitimate receipt of more than $90,000 a year in government handouts.

“He just wanted a house full of kids and the benefit money that brings,” prosecution lawyer Richard Latham said during the seven-week trial.

Welfare debate
That aspect of the case has further inflamed public anger, coming at a time when austerity-crippled Britain is bitterly divided over welfare payments.

The U.K.’s Conservative-led coalition on Monday introduced sweeping new limits to welfare checks and other government assistance schemes in a bid to save billions of dollars from the national deficit.

The liberal Guardian newspaper gravely characterized Monday’s cuts as “the day Britain changed,” but the government believes the moves have the support of many British taxpayers who are dismayed at some of the welfare checks paid out to large families. The language of the debate has divided the sides into “strivers” versus “skivers,” and “benefit recipients” versus “hard-working families.”

On Wednesday, the Daily Mail described Philpott on its front page as “The vile product of welfare UK” – a headline that drew criticism.

“There are, and have always been, a small minority of individuals capable of breathtaking cruelty,” wrote liberal commentator Owen Jones in The Independent. “The Philpott case relates in no way to people on benefits in this country.”

Derby City Council launched a review of its child welfare service in the wake of Tuesday’s verdict, amid suggestions that it should have intervened to remove the children from Philpott’s care.

However, Ann Widdecombe, a former Conservative minister who made a television documentary in which she tried to persuade Philpott to get a job and stop claiming welfare, said Wednesday: “This was very much a one-off. You cannot blame teachers or social services.

“When I visited, the children were clean, they were well-fed, they were not playing truant. There is no doubt he was using these children as a meal-ticket, but that doesn’t explain this act of wickedness."

“You cannot blame this tragedy on the benefits system," adding that Brits must "keep our heads.”

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This story was originally published on Wed Apr 3, 2013 2:02 PM EDT

Matthew Lloyd / Getty Images, file

London mayor Boris Johnson (right) and Irvine Sellar, developer of the new skyscraper The Shard, cut a ribbon.

LONDON -- He is the goofy London mayor whose jovial self-deprecation and quick intellect have rescued him from a string of political missteps and personal indignities. But floppy-haired Boris Johnson’s happy-go-lucky reputation took a battering this week, just as he revealed his ambition to one day become Britain’s prime minister.

New York-born Johnson -- memorably caught on camera dangling from a broken zip-wire during the London Olympics -- was accused of being a “nasty piece of work” in a train-wreck television interview that surfaced a darker side to his persona.

The mayor was asked about a number of embarrassing episodes in his past including being fired from his former job as a reporter with The Times newspaper for making up a quote, losing his opposition cabinet role after lying to his Conservative party leader about an affair and the accusation that he agreed to provide a reporter’s address to his friend, a convicted fraudster, so the journalist could be beaten up.

There were no new revelations in Sunday’s interview, which was hardly in the mold of Frost vs Nixon. But the feline approach of BBC presenter Eddie Mair exposed a testy, evasive side to Johnson that observers say has undermined his affable public image.

“What’s remarkable is not that the interview happened but the fact that it hasn’t happened before,” said Johnson’s biographer, Sonia Purnell.

“He has always used his jovial fellow act and has never really been challenged like that in an interview until now.

“It is true that he is very charismatic, very clever and engaging. But there is a dark side to his character. He has a ferocious temper and he bears grudges.”

The clash was in stark contrast to Johnson’s winning encounter on “Late Show with David Letterman” last year, when he entertained the studio audience and shrugged the gibe that he cut his own hair.

It has sparked a debate in Britain about whether the mayor, a keen cyclist and classical scholar whose full name is Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson -- can still be taken seriously as a contender to replace David Cameron as prime minister and leader of his Conservative party.

Mair teased Johnson about his repeated refusal to admit that he harbors ambitions to replace Cameron, with whom he has a mild personal rivalry that dates back to their shared time at Eton, Britain’s most elite private school.

Jan Kruger / Getty Images, file

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron and Mayor of London Boris Johnson warm up for a tennis match during the London Olympics.

“What should viewers make of your inability to give a straight answer to a straight question?" asked Mair, adding: “You’re a nasty piece of work, aren’t you?”

An online Guardian newspaper poll found 62 percent of its readers thought Johnson could no longer be considered a candidate for Britain’s top job. The interview “was inevitably described as a car crash, but in the case of Johnson, it was more of a bicycle crash: spokes all over the road, wheels mangled and a reputation badly dented,” wrote the newspaper’s veteran political editor, Patrick Wintour.

Purnell added: “I think it left a tidemark in people’s minds about Boris’s character.”

However, conservative commentator Toby Young said Johnson’s leadership prospects remain unchanged. “It's an elementary rule of politics that if you have any skeletons lurking in your closet that are likely to make an appearance during an election campaign, better to get them out in the open now,” he wrote in the Daily Telegraph. “Not only will it rob them of their bad juju, it will enable his supporters to claim -- yet again -- that he's popular in spite of his character flaws, not because the public isn't aware of them.”

Matthew Norman, in The Independent, asked: “Boris would be a disastrous PM. So why do I quite like the idea?” He wrote: “Life for diarists and political pundits would improve immeasurably, which strikes me as a very reasonable price to pay for the national shame of having Boris Johnson as prime minister.”

Johnson, 48, has long been a grassroots favorite to lead the Conservatives if Cameron stood down or lost office. However, to be prime minister he would first need to stand again for election to the House of Commons, which he quit in 2008 to run to be mayor of London. He is currently serving his second four-year term and has remained coy about whether he will quit early and return to parliament.

His mix of conservative economics and liberal social values -- he supports gay marriage and an amnesty for immigrants -- helped secure his election in a city long dominated by left-of-center politics, but it may not sit well with the U.K.-wide Conservative party.

His personal morality may also hinder his progress: He has acknowledged a number of affairs and has been likened to Italy’s serial philanderer and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi by satirical magazine editor Ian Hislop.

Then there is Johnson’s apparent lack of attention to detail. Purnell, who worked alongside him in the Brussels bureau of the Daily Telegraph, said: “Some of the things he wrote were on the limits of the truth. He was, at best, creative.”

Max Hastings, a former editor of Johnson's during his time as a journalist, described Johnson as "utterly chaotic," adding: "Supposing he became prime minister, the idea of Boris Johnson's finger on the nuclear button ... one day he would get it mixed up with the one to call the maid."

However, there remains a lot of affection for a man whose unvarnished approach is a breath of political fresh air.

“He is a sunshine politician and people like that,” said Ross Lydall, chief news correspondent of London’s Evening Standard newspaper, which supports Johnson.

“The way he has improved life for cyclists in London is remarkable -- as a cyclist myself, it certainly puts a smile on my face. He represents a sense of optimism compared to the old, miserable municipal politics of London.”

LONDON - A cordon will surround the U.K. home of exiled Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky until at least Wednesday, while detectives await the initial results of autopsy into his unexplained death.

The area will remained sealed off "until Wednesday or Thursday in order to protect the scene,” a spokesman for Thames Valley Police said Monday. An earlier search for evidence of radiation or chemicals returned a negative result.

Government pathologists were due to begin a post-mortem Monday afternoon on the 67-year-old, whose body was found in the locked bathroom of his large house in rural Berkshire, about 25 miles west of London. It was not clear when the initial results would be available to police.

"It would be wrong to speculate on the cause of death until the post-mortem has been carried out," Detective Chief Inspector Kevin Brown said in a statement late Sunday. "We do not have any evidence at this stage to suggest third-party involvement."

However, his death has raised suspicion in Britain where memories linger of the murder of Berezovsky's friend, Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy poisoned with radioactive material in London in 2006.

Like Litvinenko, Berezovsky had become an enemy of Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin and his suspicious death caused a major diplomatic rift between London and Moscow.

'Many enemies'
His death on Saturday makes him the latest in a line of former Soviet residents to have met an untimely end in Britain.

Litvinenko’s wife, Marina, told the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph that her friend Berezovsky had "many enemies" and that it was "not likely" he that he had committed suicide.

Her lawyer last month accused Britain and Russia of colluding to try to shut down an inquiry into his death for the sake of lucrative trade deals.

Matthew Lloyd / Getty Images

The home of Russian oligarch Boris Berezovsky in Sunningdale, England.

Berezovsky accumulated his wealth in the early 1990s, when Russia's privatization of state assets turned chaotic. He orchestrated the re-election of Boris Yeltsin in 1996 and played a role in Putin's rise to prominence, but he fell out of favor with the latter after Putin became president of Russia in 2000. 

He suffered a huge financial blow in 2011 after agreeing one of Britain's biggest-ever divorce settlements – reportedly as much as $100m - with his former wife, Galina.

Reuters reported that Berezovsky was also under pressure after losing a $6 billion court case to Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abramovich, a former business partner he sued in one of the most expensive cases in British legal history.

"He had no money, he had lost it all. He was unbelievably depressed," Tim Bell, a public relations executive who was one of his closest British advisers, told the Sunday Times newspaper. "It's all very sad."

Meanwhile, Putin's spokesman said Berezovsky, seen by Moscow as a criminal who should stand trial for fraud and tax evasion, had written to Putin asking for forgiveness - a suggestion dismissed by one of the oligarch's friends, Reuters said.

"Berezovsky sent Vladimir Putin a letter he wrote personally, in which he acknowledged that he had made many mistakes, asked Putin's forgiveness for these mistakes and appealed to Putin to help him return to his homeland," said Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov.

A friend of Berezovsky's in London, Andrei Sidelnikov, told Reuters the idea that the businessman would write a letter to Putin was "complete nonsense".

"He was a sane person and he understood that he would never be able to return under Putin's regime, for political reasons," Sidelnikov said.

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Full Russia coverage from NBC News

This story was originally published on Mon Mar 25, 2013 7:19 AM EDT

STANLEY, Falkland Islands -- Residents of the Falkland Islands voted almost unanimously to stay under British rule in a referendum aimed at winning global sympathy as Argentina intensifies its sovereignty claim, results showed on Monday.

The official count showed 99.8 percent of islanders voted in favor of remaining a British Overseas Territory in the two-day referendum, which was rejected by Argentina as a meaningless publicity stunt. Only three "no" votes were cast.

"Surely this must be the strongest message we can get out to the world," said Roger Edwards, one of the Falklands assembly's eight elected members.

"(The message is) that we are content, that we wish to retain the status quo ... with the right to determine our own future and not become a colony of Argentina."

Javier Lizon / EPA

Falkland Islanders celebrate in Port Stanley on Monday. Of the 1,517 ballots cast, just three were against the motion to remain a British overseas territory.

Pro-British feeling is running high in the barren and blustery islands that lie off the tip of Patagonia, and turnout was 92 percent among the 1,649 Falklands-born and long-term residents registered to vote.

Three decades since Argentina and Britain went to war over the far-flung South Atlantic archipelago, residents have been perturbed by Argentina's increasingly vocal claim over the Malvinas -- as the islands are called in Spanish.

Local politicians hope the resounding "yes" vote will help them lobby support abroad, for example in the United States, which has a neutral position on the sovereignty issue.

"We're never going to change Argentina's claim and point of view, but I believe there are an awful lot of countries out there that are sitting on the fence. ... This is going to show them quite clearly what the people think," Edwards added.

'We are British'
The mood was festive as islanders lined up in the cold to vote in the low-key island capital of Stanley during voting, some wearing novelty outfits made from the red, white and blue Union Jack flag.

"We are British, and that's the way we want to stay," said Barry Nielsen, who wore a Union Jack hat to cast his ballot at the town hall polling station in Stanley, where most of the roughly 2,500 islanders live.

Argentina's fiery left-leaning president, Cristina Fernandez, has piled pressure on Britain to negotiate the sovereignty of the islands, something London refuses to do unless the islanders request talks.

Government officials in Buenos Aires questioned the referendum's legitimacy. They say the sovereignty dispute must be resolved between Britain and Argentina and cite U.N. resolutions calling on London to sit down for talks.

Argentina has claimed the islands since 1833, saying it inherited them from the Spanish on independence and that Britain expelled an Argentine population.

Javier Lizon / EPA

A man wearing a Union flag suit dances as he casts his vote in the referendum to decide if the Falkland Islands would remain a British territory.

Falkland islanders, who are enjoying an economic boom thanks partly to the sale of oil and natural gas exploration licenses, say they do not expect Monday's result to sway Argentina.

"Argentina's stance on the Falklands will stay the same," said Stanley resident Craig Paice, wearing a T-shirt with the slogan "Our Islands, Our Decision" as he waited to vote on Monday.

"But hopefully the world will now listen and know the people of the Falkland Islands have a voice."

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LONDON -- Britain's food regulator said horse meat had been found in beef products at Taco Bell fast food outlets, the first time it has been discovered on sale in British restaurants since the scandal broke in January.

The Food Standards Agency said Friday that it had conducted 1,797 tests over the past seven days, over 99 percent of which had come back negative for horse meat levels at or above 1 percent.

However, four tests were positive, it said. These included Birds Eye ready meals and Brakes skewers, already withdrawn from sale.

It added that no tests to date on samples containing horse DNA had found the veterinary medicine phenylbutazone, or "bute."

Tex-Mex fast-food chain Taco Bell, owned by U.S. firm Yum Brands Inc., has three outlets in the U.K.

"Some batches of ground beef supplied to us from one supplier in Europe tested positive for horse meat," Taco Bell U.K. said in a statement.

"We immediately withdrew ground beef from sale in our restaurants, discontinued purchase of that meat, and contacted the Food Standards Agency with this information," it added.

The news is awkward timing for Yum, which on Monday said it was moving to tighten food safety and reverse a sharp drop in business at its KFC restaurants in China after a scare over contaminated chicken.

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Ben Mitchell / Press Association via AP

The Rev. Bob Mason's Facebook plea attracted 200 mourners to the funeral of late Royal Marine James McConnell on Thursday.

LONDON -- More than 200 strangers attended a British veteran's funeral after a clergyman put out a plea on Facebook, fearing he would be buried without mourners, according to reports.

James McConnell, who served with the U.K.'s Royal Marines, died last month aged 70.

Staff at his nursing home in Southsea, Hampshire, thought they would be the only people at his funeral as he did not have any close family, ITV News reported.

The Rev. Bob Mason, posted a message on Facebook and contacted the Royal Marines Association.

The message, which was shared and reposted by members of the association and thousands of other Facebook users, said:

"Ladies and Gentlemen, In this day and age it is tragic enough that anyone has to leave this world with no one to mourn their passing, but this man was family and I am sure you will agree deserves a better send off. If you can make it to the graveside for that time to pay your respects to a former brother in arms then please try to be there."

Ben Mitchell / Press Association via AP

A motorcycle procession during the funeral of James McConnell, who died last month at the age of 70.

Hundreds responded to the message, braving the freezing temperatures to attend Thursday’s ceremony at Milton Cemetery in nearby Portsmouth.

'Dignified burial'
Mason, who conducted Thursday’s funeral, told local newspaper, The News: “I want to say a big thank you to all of those who turned up.

“Many people had concerns about him being buried with no family present but now they have seen him have a dignified burial.”

Among those attending was Arthur Bailey, 88, who was a soldier who served in several conflicts.

"I heard about it and just wanted to come along," he told The News. "This is what the armed forces family is for. It’s a credit to everyone who turned up."

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