Benefits bosses hounded my disabled lover to death – because he went on charity bike ride

They stopped Nathan Hartwell’s allowance, accused him of lying about his condition and demanded £11,000 after learning he had cycled to raise £2,000 for Help for Heroes

The family of a man stripped of disability allowance because he did a charity bike ride say ­benefits bosses hounded him to death.

Nathan Hartwell, 36, died of heart failure after an 18-month battle with the ­Department for Works and Pensions. They stopped his allowance, accused him of lying about his condition and demanded £11,000 after learning he had cycled from John O’Groats to Land’s End and back to raise £2,000 for Help for Heroes. The DWP pursued Nathan even after prosecutors dropped a benefits fraud charge against him.

Reports by two surgeons said although walking caused him pain, he could ride a bike. The former IT salesman had contracted a flesh-eating bug aged 15 and needed vein transplants. He was forced to give up work at 27. His disability was so bad he was told by doctors before one operation that he might lose a leg.

Girlfriend Karen Colam said: “The DWP carried out a sustained campaign against Nathan and the pressure killed him. He had never had heart problems. Giving up work devastated him but he was in terrible pain every day. He could barely walk 10 yards. He thought he was making a difference to war heroes when he did that ride.”

Nathan was found dead hours before a Citizens Advice appointment about his case in January. Karen said: “My world fell apart.” His dad Rob, 60, added: “We’ve no doubt he gave up as he couldn’t face the stress.” Nathan was on morphine as he spent three months in 2010 on his 2,000-mile ride. Karen of Perranporth, Cornwall, said: “Nathan’s pain was immense so I’ve no idea how he managed to finish it but he was determined.”

When the DWP found out two years later they stopped his £105 a week and demanded benefits dating back to his ride. Girlfriend Karen Colam said: “The DWP carried out a sustained campaign against Nathan and the pressure killed him. He had never had heart problems. Giving up work devastated him but he was in terrible pain every day. He could barely walk 10 yards. He thought he was making a difference to war heroes when he did that ride.”

Nathan was found dead hours before a Citizens Advice appointment about his case in January. Karen said: “My world fell apart.” His dad Rob, 60, added: “We’ve no doubt he gave up as he couldn’t face the stress.”

Nathan was on morphine as he spent three months in 2010 on his 2,000-mile ride. Karen of Perranporth, Cornwall, said: “Nathan’s pain was immense so I’ve no idea how he managed to finish it but he was determined.”

When the DWP found out two years later they stopped his £105 a week and demanded benefits dating back to his ride.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/disabled-mans-family-say-benefits-4294192#ixzz3DtvNSlvv

Council finds larger home for disabled couple… then stings them for bedroom tax

A local authority arranged for a disabled couple to move from their one-bedroom flat into a two-bedroom bungalow because they needed to sleep apart for health reasons, but then forced them to pay the “bedroom tax”.

Croydon council moved Roy Langridge and his wife Tracey into the bungalow on 27 May after it was unable to repair the lift to the fourth-floor flat where they had been living.

Langridge has severe pulmonary lung disease, sleep apnoea, arthritis, and has just recovered from pneumonia caused, he says, by trying to climb the four floors to the flat while the lift was broken. He is also recovering from cancer of the larynx.

 

read the rest of this story from JSUK here: http://www.jsuknews.co.uk/council-finds-larger-home-for-disabled-couple-then-stings-them-for-bedroom-tax/

Are you in the ESA Support Group and have been asked to attend a Work Focussed Interview?

jaynelinney

It would appear the DWP are up to their tricks again – threatening sick and disabled people with withdrawal of benefits unless they attend Work Focussed Interviews – Even those of us in the Support group!

Below is a Calling Notice from DPAC –

DPAC have been getting information that people in the ESA Support Group are being required by JobCentre Plus offices to attend Work Focussed Interviews, under threat of benefits being withdrawn if you don’t go.

According to the DWP Webpage, if you are in the Support Group you “You don’t have to go to interviews, but you can ask to talk to a personal adviser. “, which should mean that they cannot require you to attend.

We are going to look closely at this and do whatever we can to get this stopped, but in order to do that we first need to gather information…

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More Details Of The Shirebrook JobCentre Situation

Same Difference

Remember this post, readers?

I’ve just recieved full details of the situation from Paul Yates at the Welfair Foundation:

Hi, Not sure if there is anything in particular you would like to know, if there is then please don’t hesitate to ask. The more information that gets out about this the better. Please feel free to post any or all of the following information on online. A local lady (Shirebrook) recently received a letter from Shirebrook Jobcentre giving her an appointment for a work-focused interview. She is in the Support Group of ESA and in receipt of both the care component and mobility component of PIP at the enhanced rate. She is severely disabled and very frightened about what lies ahead for her now in regards to sanctions/workfare etc. She telephoned Shirebrook Jobcentre to enquire whether there had been a mistake and they informed her that all ESA claimants, including…

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Peter Duut’s Widow Now Left Penniless By DWP- Even Without Dutch Survivor’s Pension.

Same Difference

Same Difference has been back in touch with LJ Duut, widow of Peter Duut, whose situation, very sadly, apears to be getting worse.

Earlier today, Monday 15 Sept, LJ Duut posted this on Facebook:

OK- as the situation stands- all benefits ceased in the UK and no Survivors benefit paid from the Netherlands. Not too bothered yet although I am not quite sure what time banks close there now? as it is an hour ahead. Well done UK gov yet again! stopping all benefits before waiting to see if I actually received anything?

Then this a couple of hours later:

It is now 18.02hrs in the Netherlands- nothing went into my account today. Therefore I have been honest yet the UK gov has jumped the gun and stopped everything even saying they ‘ want’ anything I receive- before waiting to see if I actually did get anything – therefore the…

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Meet MAXIMUS – the new ATOS (but even worse)

Pride's Purge

(not satire – it’s the UK today!)

Here’s one that got in under the radar.

The coalition government has chosen a VERY controversial US private company to run its new health assessment service to be called the Health and Work Service.

In less than 2 months time any employee who is sick enough to have to claim sick leave from work for more than 4 weeks will be assessed – mostly by phone – by employees of a US firm called MAXIMUS.

Apart from the ludicrous assumption that sick people can be assessed over the telephone, for some reason, when the UK government decided to hand the lucrative contract to run the service over to MAXIMUS, they also decided to ignore the numerous scandals involving the company in the US.

Here are just a few examples:

Lawmakers lash out at Maximus for questionable expenses payments

Medical workers allowed to keep practising despite failing drug…

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212,000 People ‘Beaten Up For Being On Benefits’, Shocking Survey Reveals

Up to 212,000 people have been ‘beaten up for being on benefits’ as a direct result of the despicable ‘scrounger’ rhetoric in the media and ‘poverty porn’ TV programmes, a shocking new survey reveals today.

A survey by YouGov reveals the devastating impact of newspaper benefits propaganda, and ‘poverty porn’ programmes like Channel 4’s Benefits Street, on some of Britain’s poorest and most vulnerable citizens.

Read the whole of this article here: http://welfarenewsservice.com/212000-people-beaten-benefits-shocking-survey-reveals/

Bone marrow transplant patient could lose her Motability car under DWP rules

Ann McGauran

“Lesley” is petrified. She needs a bone marrow transplant at the end of this month. Trying to deal with Myelodysplasia – a serious blood disorder that causes a drop in the number of healthy blood cells – is tough enough already, and she is very anxious about the transplant. But now she’s worried she’ll lose her Motability vehicle at the very time she needs it most. The decision by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to stop paying the mobility component of the Disability Living Allowance (DLA) or Personal Independence Payment (PIP) to the Motability Scheme when people end up in hospital for more than 28 days has added an extra level of concern.

The 47-year-old divorcee depends on the leased car for her 40-mile round trip to the NHS centre of excellence where she’s being treated. She expects to be in hospital for four to six weeks post-transplant…

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Epileptic man hanged himself after his benefits were stopped

Trigger warning. This tragedy should not be repeated. If you dispute a wrong decision you are very likely to get it overturned. I hate having to post articles like this, but the mainstream newspapers don’t do it, and people need to know what this government’s policies are doing to the sick and disabled.

“DEVASTATED that his benefits had been stopped, a man with epilepsy hanged himself.

Trevor Drakard had been deemed fit for employment, after a back-to-work assessment. The 50-year-old, who never married and had few friends, took his own life at his home in Sunderland.

An inquest into his death heard Mr Drakard had been diagnosed with epilepsy from the age of six and was receiving Incapacity Benefit.

Coroner’s officer Neville Dixon told a hearing in Sunderland: “In the past few months he had been deemed fit to work and his benefits were stopped. He had been in the process of appealing with the Citizens Advice Bureau. He had been feeling very down in recent weeks, due to the stress of losing his benefits.”

A “lonely person”, Mr Drakard had also lost two close friends in the last three years. He would meet his parents for dinner three times a week, the hearing was told. They last saw him on July 18, after dropping him off at his home in General Graham Street.

When they were unable to get in touch with him about signing papers relating to his benefits, they called round to the house and found Mr Drakard’s body in his bedroom.

Senior coroner Derek Winter said Mr Drakard would have been unconscious “in a small number of seconds” and died shortly after. Tests showed he had still been taking his epilepsy medication.

Mr Winter said he was satisfied beyond all reasonable doubt that Mr Drakard had been responsible for his own death.

Speaking after the hearing, Sunderland MP Julie Elliot said: “This case is tragic and need not have happened. My thoughts are with Mr Drakards’ family and friends. Sadly, the removal of benefits to genuinely sick people is becoming all too common, having a devastating impact on people’s lives and in this case a tragic outcome. The system is not fit for purpose – the Government needs to act now to stop anymore tragedies occurring and causing unnecessary hardship to people.”

Verdict: Suicide.

ffrom the Sunderland Echo: http://www.sunderlandecho.com/news/crime/epileptic-man-hanged-himself-after-his-benefits-were-stopped-1-6825510

 

Bedroom Tax ‘tormented cancer victim to death’ when she was forced to move home despite illness

Jan Mandeville could not afford the extra rent on the two-bed flat she loved so she had to switch to a smaller property that she hated

News that the end of the despised Bedroom Tax was in sight on Friday came too late for cancer victim Jan Mandeville, reports the Sunday People.

The 52-year-old grandmother’s funeral was on Thursday. And, according to her family, her death was hastened when she was forced to move home despite her fatal illness.

Jan – who also suffered depression and fibromyalgia, making even basic movement painful – could not afford the extra rent on the two-bed flat she loved so she had to switch to a smaller property that she hated.

Her online diary reveals how she was tormented by the Bedroom Tax as well as her anger at the politicians she blamed.  Last year, Jan told how she fell into rent arrears following the housing benefit reforms which forced her to move home that year. She said: “The worry made me so ill that I was in hospital with stress.”

Her distraught daughter Nicola Braithwaite, 28, told the Sunday People: “Her health ­deteriorated after she left where she wanted to be. What she went through breaks my heart. They let her slip through the net. They didn’t consider that not only did she have physical illnesses, she had mental illnesses too. They were heightened ­because of what happened. A lot of it was from that.”

Jan worked as a care ­assistant and in hotels until she quit due to poor health eight years ago. While employed, she paid her taxes and hoped she could rely on the welfare state when she needed help.

But her family say she was failed by the system, repeatedly quizzed about her fitness to work and eventually forced to abandon her home because of the sweeping benefits cuts which kicked in 17 months ago.

read the rest of this article here: http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/bedroom-tax-tormented-cancer-victim-4177135