It Pays To Be Fat: Couple ‘too fat to work’ marry in wedding costing £3,000

A couple with a combined weight of 54 stone who claim £2,000 a month in benefits because they are ‘too fat to work’ got married in a ceremony costing £3,000. The duo, who planned the day from their one-bedroom flat in Plymouth, Devon, paid for the wedding out of housing benefits.

Stephen Beer, 45, and Michelle Coombe, 43, claim they are too big to find a job and instead rely on benefits and help from carers day-to-day.

The couple receive Disability Living Allowance because they have metabolic disease – the medical term for a combination of obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Stephen, who has already been married five times, weighs in at 31 stone and has not worked in five years, while Michelle has never worked and weighs 23 stone.

Stephen said he would like a job ideally “sitting down in a kiosk on the Tamar Bridge” or as Santa Claus in a department store.

He confessed that he once had his own cleaning company but, after a stroke in 2008, his eating spiralled out of control while he weighed 27 stone, and he lost his business.

The groom said he can no longer stand up for more than a few minutes at a time, and relied on a council carer to get washed and dressed – costing £8,000 of taxpayer’s money a year. He can only get around on a specially adapted mobility scooter for the obese. Stephen is so big he even struggles to chop vegetables for his favourite pasta dish without becoming out of breath.

Their wedding came to an abrupt end as Stephen took ill at the reception and had to be rushed to the hospital by ambulance.

Source: Mirror