A landlord has been fined £162,000 after 18 people were found living in slum-like conditions in a four-bedroom flat opposite Hyde Park in Kensington.
Sixty-four-year-old Abbas Rasul charged an average of £800 a month in rent from each tenant, pocketing nearly £15,000 a month.
The house is next door to the Dutch embassy and near the £23m house where Sir Winston Churchill died in 1965.
Many of the tenants occupying the house were believed to be migrant workers who work at some of London’s luxury hotels.
Hammersmith Magistrates Court heard there were no fire doors, smoke detectors or alarms in the property, some rooms lacked basic lighting and there was only one kitchen.
An order by environmental health officers requested all the tenants to leave within 28 days.
Rasul and his companies, Grosvenor Property Investments Ltd and London Victoria Estates Ltd, were this month found guilty of failing to license a house in multiple occupation.
They were also found to be in breach of 22 housing regulations.
Rasul and his companies were fined £162,000 and ordered to pay £3,498 in costs.
