Basildon pensioner Sid Chaney has boasted of how he fleeced credit card giant American Express out of £7,000 - and gave it all away.

The campaigning pensioner spent £1,800 on the elderly and £1,500 on Laindon youngsters in a protest against "greedy" bank bosses who bombarded him with junk mail.

Now the 78-year-old, who lives in a one-bedroom sheltered complex, is suing them for harassment after they tried to get their cash back.

It is not the first time Sid has taken on the banks. He blew £117,000 on the needy during the 1980s after opening bank accounts in his pets' names. He was never prosecuted.

The latest escapade came after American Express tried to persuade a dead woman, who used to live in Sid's Noak Bridge flat, to take a credit card.

Despite calls to the company that the woman was no longer alive, American Express bosses insisted she should have a credit card - so Sid took them up on the offer.

In a two-month Christmas spending spree he spent:

£1,800 on a slap-up Christmas supper for his elderly neighbours

£1,500 on equipment for two local football teams and replica kits for Laindon youngsters

£600 on cigarettes for friends

£1,500 on a festive surprise for a poor local family

Sid, who stood as an independent councillor in the Basildon Council elections last week, said he was trying to teach "greedy" bank bosses a lesson.

None of the cash went into his own pocket or his sparcely-decorated flat, he claimed.

Sid, of Kenilworth Place, said: "I'm not a crook. I'm an honest, principled man but those banks are greedy.

"They asked for it and they got it. They tried to force an old woman into taking a credit card and I wonder how many other elderly people they've done the same too."

Sid, a former decorator, got a credit card in the woman's name but refused to use it. However, following mail from the Brighton-based company he took out a supplementary card in his own name.

He said: "Tongue-in-cheek I scribbled a signature and they sent me a card but then complained I wasn't using it and asked if I wanted a supplementary card in my name which would be billed to her. So I did."

Sid has been summoned to appear before Basildon Crown Court to pay back the cash but is confident the judge will throw the case out.

He has hit back with a £500 counterclaim. He said: "I've been harassed by them. They need to be taught a lesson."

An American Express spokesman refused to comment on the case.

Credit card giveaway - Sid Chaney spent £7,000 of American Express's money on good causes

Picture: ANDY PALMER

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.