AN ASSOCIATE of fraud-accused landlord Rajinder Samrai induced a 17-year-old youth into becoming a phantom tenant so that the businessman's letting agency could claim housing benefit for an empty flat, a trial has heard.

Daryll Campbell, now 22, told how a man called 'Chuck' promised him that he'd be paid £50 a month if he agreed to declare on official forms that he was renting the property — which he said had no electricity.

Mr Campbell said he'd been staying with three friends in another of Samrai's flats in the same close as the empty, and unfurnished, Clune Park property when he was approached by 'Chuck' and offered a cash kickback.

Asked by prosecutor Kevin Doherty from whom he was to be renting the other flat, Mr Campbell replied: "Mr Samrai."

Mr Doherty put it to him: "Did he (Samrai) know you weren't staying in that flat?"

Mr Campbell replied: "Yes."

Fiscal depute Mr Doherty asked: "Were you promised money to say you were staying there?"

Mr Campbell responded: "It wasn't Mr Samrai who promised money. It was someone who worked for him."

He added that he was 'sure' that another of his flatmates at the time had been approached in a similar way, with neither being the registered tenant of the flat they were actually living in.

Samrai, 43, is facing multiple charges involving allegations of housing benefit and cheque fraud which are said to total around £25,000.

He is said to have submitted leases and other documentation to Inverclyde Council allegedly pretending that he had tenants residing in empty properties.

Crown witness Mr Campbell said: "Every time the rent was to be paid, I was to get £50."

Mr Doherty asked: "Who was paying the rent?"

Mr Campbell replied: "It must have been the housing benefit."

The court heard how a lease agreement for the property on Maxwell Street, Port Glasgow, had Mr Campbell's name, date of birth and national insurance number, and specified the rent as £300 per four weeks.

He told Greenock Sheriff Court that he saw Samrai signing the document as the landlord.

Mr Campbell was asked who requested that he sign the housing benefit form and replied: "It was the letting agency"

He added that Samrai witnessed him signing that form.

Mr Doherty asked: "Did you ever get any money?"

Mr Campbell — who no longer resides in Inverclyde — replied: "No, I didn't receive any."

The allegations against Samrai, of Myreton Avenue, Kilmacolm, cover a period of time spanning more than five years between February 28 2009 and May 19 2014.

He denies all of the charges against him.

The trial, before Sheriff Derek Hamilton, is due to continue on Wednesday.