There’s irony. If the payments had not been loans, they would probably have been disregarded as “voluntary payments”.
However, as the payments were loans, a bit of digging will be needed to establish whether or not the payments counted as income, based on the circs. Two main judgements are a good starting point:
[b:8361aace4f]MORRELL v SoS for Work & Pensions (2003) EWCA Civ 526[/b:8361aace4f]
[b:8361aace4f]LEEVES v Chief Adj Officer (1998) EWCA Civ 1706 ELR 90[/b:8361aace4f]
Also:
[b:8361aace4f]CH/3393/2003[/b:8361aace4f] (ignore the credit card aspect)
[b:8361aace4f]CH/1605/2005[/b:8361aace4f]
Er, good luck….
