A mother of eight living on housing benefit in a £2.6million home provided by her London council said today: "I'm not going to pretend it isn't great."

Francesca Walker told of her new life in the Notting Hill townhouse which costs taxpayers £90,000 a year.

She added: "I've lived in overcrowded flats on estates with gangs that kicked our door in and harassed my children, but now we're living on a street of millionaires."

She was given the five bedroom, three bathroom four-floor property because of a loophole which means Kensington and Chelsea council had to fund a suitable home in the borough for a family of that size.

Among those living nearby are film director Richard Curtis and David Cameron.

The 33-year-old Muslim convert, whose children by two fathers are aged from five to 16, said she would rather be in a job than caught in a benefits trap which leaves her worse off if she goes out to work.

She told the Standard she was grateful to escape the appalling conditions she had raised her children in until now, adding: "Before we came here we lived in some hell-holes."

Mother of eight on Millionaires' Row who makes money by doing up eBay sofas

She doesn't know how to use the dishwasher, can't quite believe the granite kitchen counters, and feels lost in her en-suite bathroom the size of a living room.

For Francesca Walker, a mother of eight living on benefits who is used to council flats with damp and crumbling walls, life in this £2.6 million Notting Hill townhouse takes some getting used to.

"Look at these lovely high-gloss kitchen units," she says, taking me on a tour of the spotless villa in Ladbroke Road with five bedrooms, three bathrooms, double living room, study and roof terrace on four floors.

"All my life I've lived in overcrowded flats on estates with gangs that kicked our door in and harassed my children, but now we're living on a street of millionaires."

This week Miss Walker, 33, found herself in the spotlight, cast as London's very own "slumdog millionaire", when it emerged that the taxpayer is funding her monthly rent of £7,600.

Kensington and Chelsea council moved her into the property in September, and she now has David Cameron, Hugh Grant and Richard Curtis as neighbours.

"Before we came here, we lived in some hellholes," she says. "In one flat there were dead mice and it stank so badly we couldn't use two rooms.

In another there was a gas leak that made my children ill. For the past three years, nine of us have lived in a three-bedroom flat on the Lancaster West estate in Ladbroke Grove.

"The council had no five-bedroom council properties available and said the only way we could move was to join their LetStart Scheme, where you rent from a private landlord.

It wasn't my preference but eventually I went to Foxtons and got this place, signing a three-year contract."

Miss Walker, a British-born Muslim studying psychology through the Open University, said she had been taken into care at 14 after her mother suffered a nervous breakdown, and had since attempted to rebuild her life.

She is not the only one to benefit from government benefit rules, introduced in April, that oblige councils to house tenants in private properties if suitable council homes are unavailable.

This was intended to promote fairness but has led, in some cases, to a gross waste of taxpayers' money.

In October it was revealed a family of eight Afghan immigrants were being housed in a £1.2 million private home in Ealing for an annual taxpayer-funded rental of £150,000.

Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell says he will review the failing system next month but until then, insists a Kensington and Chelsea spokesman, the council's hands are tied.

He said: "When Miss Walker came to us she was technically homeless and we had a statutory obligation to house her.

"We could not move her to a property outside the borough because her children go to local schools and the rules say you can't uproot them."

Miss Walker, whose eight children are aged between five and 16, gets £15,000 a year in benefits in addition to the £91,260 rent paid by the Government via the council to the landlord's agency, Foxtons.

She has never met her landlord, Dr Nigel Paul Armstrong, a gynaecologist in private practice at the West End's Portland Hospital and the Lister Hospital in Chelsea.

"I communicate with the landlord by text and phone," she says. "They tell me how things like the alarm system works, but I still can't get to grips with the dishwasher."

Asked if she thought her landlord was charging the taxpayer inflated rents, Miss Walker replied: "I don't think so because I've seen similar properties in the area rented for double my £1,755 a week.

"People complain that it's a waste of taxpayers' money, but it wasn't so long ago that various councils put us up in hotel rooms costing £300 a day."

Dr Armstrong, who previously lived here with his wife and three children before moving to a nearby borough, declined to comment.

But to her affluent neighbours, Miss Walker, in her embroidered espadrilles and hijab, is something of an enigma.

Many have never rubbed shoulders with a council tenant and some took her to be the wife of a Middle Eastern businessman.

"She looks rather well-heeled," says one. "Her children always appear smartly dressed and she seems like a well-spoken, house-proud mother."

Indeed, guests can't fail to notice she has furnished the villa in style. She has two 42in flat-screen TVs, a computer and a clutch of expensive looking sofas and Ottoman beds.

The house does not feel sparsely appointed, as some might expect, given that she's meant to be living on the poverty line and it was rented "unfurnished".

So how does she manage to afford all this on benefits? "I'm a self-taught seamstress," she says, showing me her sewing machine. "I buy second-hand sofas off eBay for £95 that would sell for £3,000 new then re-upholster them. I also got the TVs off eBay for £110.

"And I make my own clothes. As a single mother with no family to support me, I've learned to be resourceful."

She was brought up by her Jamaican-born mother on the World's End estate in Chelsea after her father, a musician, abandoned them: "I was a talented ballet and jazz dancer, and a bright student, and in my early teens I was signed up with a child modelling agency."

But her world collapsed, she says, when her mother had a nervous breakdown and she was taken into care aged 14.

"Over the next three years, I lived in three foster homes and moved school five times. By 17, I had only passed two GCSEs and was living in a children's home in Ladbroke Grove with some disreputable characters. I was afraid of being abused and becoming a junkie. I began to explore Islam."

At 17 she converted to the religion and married a fellow convert. They had five children before divorcing five years later.

Her second marriage produced three children and lasted five years until 2004. But having so many children so young, and little education or financial backing, has meant Miss Walker has become a growing burden on the taxpayer.

Did she develop a taste for living off the state, or would she have preferred to work? "I'm the product of a failed society," she says. "My family failed me, the council failed me, and I failed myself.

"I should not have married and got pregnant at 17. On the other hand, I've never been in trouble with the law, my kids are healthy and well-looked after, we're moderate Muslims and not extremists, and I'm taking a psychology degree with the Open University so I can become a support worker to help families who are socially excluded.

"I want to set up a charity to help mothers who, like myself, have depended on their husbands but then find themselves single and without financial support."

What do her friends think of her new home? "It's caused a lot of jealousy," she admits. "My best friend accused me of swallowing up everything the world has to offer and becoming materialistic.

"I didn't ask to be here. I'd rather have a job and live in an ordinary council house than be trapped in a catch-22 situation where going out to work will actually make me worse off because I can never make enough to pay the rent."

She shakes her head. "I can beat myself up. For four days, after the story broke on Sunday, I never left the house, barricading myself in like a hostage in my own home. I felt like I was the villain, but now that I've told my story, people can judge for themselves."

She smiles. "And now that I am here, I'm not going to pretend it isn't great. It's amazing to have so much space.

"And not to wake in the morning and have nine of us desperately queuing to use one bathroom."

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