People who had never met my children, who didn't know my children, made decisions about them in 2013, causing far reaching consequences.
Last week my autistic son, 21 years old and still autistic despite my conviction, had to attend a DWP Tribunal. His support worker had helped him to claim Personal Independence Payments (PIP) in August 2014. One of the main reasons he needed to claim this was due to my imprisonment for "falsely" claiming the equivalent... DLA... when he was a child. Without my 24/7 support, and left alone to be cared for by his siblings, there was no option but to claim the help and support he is morally and legally entitled to.
When I say "helped him" what I really mean is she had made the initial phone calls, filled in the forms when they arrived, written the reports needed, supported him emotionally, enabled him to have a DWP approved financial safeguarding team dealing with his benefits and found an independent advocate who would support him through the whole arduous process.
It took 19 months to reach tribunal stage. The DWP awarded him zero points in every area, stating: "Eden is an unsafe witness due to his mother's conviction" and "Eden performed in the Pirates of Penzance with Crawley Operatic" and "Eden cannot have become autistic at 20 as the condition is there from birth"....... do you see the flaws in their arguments?
As expected the DWP sent a presenting officer to the Tribunal. Recently the DWP have recruited many new presenting officers as they are failing to stop Tribunals overturning their negative and usually wrong PIP decisions at a rate of knots! The following was the answer to a question to the House of Commons in September 2015 about how many Tribunals were found in the claimant's favour:
April to June 2015 PIP Tribunals 47%
April to June 2015 ESA Tribunals 52%
On Wednesday, I left my son in Brighton, feeling more anxious than I have ever seen him, waiting with his advocate for what he perceived to be a court hearing equal to my prosecution. He felt he was a criminal, he was terrified he would be arrested. Two and a half hours later I spoke to him to hear that the Tribunal had allowed his appeal! Eden has no concept of what that means for him. Which really says it all!
The presenting officer stated that all the DWP evidence was inadmissible and to decide the case on its own merits. It would only have taken a few minutes of conversation with my son to realise how severely he is affected by autism, in fact they overturned the zero points to such an extent that he was awarded the enhanced rate of daily living, exactly what he is entitled to based on their own PIP descriptors.
What a shame the DWP could not have done this a few years ago. What a pity they were unable to make that simple move to actually meet the children they were making decisions about. Much as everyone is hating the new system for PIP, I actually think the assessments are a good idea in cases like mine The ATOS medical professional who met Eden also decided he had quite a high level of need. But of course, the DWP were not able to accept this as it throws a massive spanner in the works of their incredibly corrupt and dishonest conviction of me, his mother. They decided to ignore their own employed medical assessors..... made themselves look pretty stupid really.
I have no doubt they will try to appeal. I am sure the air was blue on Wednesday in the DWP fraud offices! I am just grateful that they can only appeal now on a point of law. The Tribunal panel were so very kind to my son, who spent many years having to come to terms with his autism and understand (to some extent) his own limitations, only to have the DWP convict his mother falsely and tell him he wasn't actually autistic. What a cruel way to behave to a vulnerable 21 year old.
Oh, and the 19 year old with Aspergers has, with support, also successfully claimed his PIP! Corrupt and dishonest conviction? I'll let you decide......
Last week my autistic son, 21 years old and still autistic despite my conviction, had to attend a DWP Tribunal. His support worker had helped him to claim Personal Independence Payments (PIP) in August 2014. One of the main reasons he needed to claim this was due to my imprisonment for "falsely" claiming the equivalent... DLA... when he was a child. Without my 24/7 support, and left alone to be cared for by his siblings, there was no option but to claim the help and support he is morally and legally entitled to.
When I say "helped him" what I really mean is she had made the initial phone calls, filled in the forms when they arrived, written the reports needed, supported him emotionally, enabled him to have a DWP approved financial safeguarding team dealing with his benefits and found an independent advocate who would support him through the whole arduous process.
It took 19 months to reach tribunal stage. The DWP awarded him zero points in every area, stating: "Eden is an unsafe witness due to his mother's conviction" and "Eden performed in the Pirates of Penzance with Crawley Operatic" and "Eden cannot have become autistic at 20 as the condition is there from birth"....... do you see the flaws in their arguments?
As expected the DWP sent a presenting officer to the Tribunal. Recently the DWP have recruited many new presenting officers as they are failing to stop Tribunals overturning their negative and usually wrong PIP decisions at a rate of knots! The following was the answer to a question to the House of Commons in September 2015 about how many Tribunals were found in the claimant's favour:
April to June 2015 PIP Tribunals 47%
April to June 2015 ESA Tribunals 52%
On Wednesday, I left my son in Brighton, feeling more anxious than I have ever seen him, waiting with his advocate for what he perceived to be a court hearing equal to my prosecution. He felt he was a criminal, he was terrified he would be arrested. Two and a half hours later I spoke to him to hear that the Tribunal had allowed his appeal! Eden has no concept of what that means for him. Which really says it all!
The presenting officer stated that all the DWP evidence was inadmissible and to decide the case on its own merits. It would only have taken a few minutes of conversation with my son to realise how severely he is affected by autism, in fact they overturned the zero points to such an extent that he was awarded the enhanced rate of daily living, exactly what he is entitled to based on their own PIP descriptors.
What a shame the DWP could not have done this a few years ago. What a pity they were unable to make that simple move to actually meet the children they were making decisions about. Much as everyone is hating the new system for PIP, I actually think the assessments are a good idea in cases like mine The ATOS medical professional who met Eden also decided he had quite a high level of need. But of course, the DWP were not able to accept this as it throws a massive spanner in the works of their incredibly corrupt and dishonest conviction of me, his mother. They decided to ignore their own employed medical assessors..... made themselves look pretty stupid really.
I have no doubt they will try to appeal. I am sure the air was blue on Wednesday in the DWP fraud offices! I am just grateful that they can only appeal now on a point of law. The Tribunal panel were so very kind to my son, who spent many years having to come to terms with his autism and understand (to some extent) his own limitations, only to have the DWP convict his mother falsely and tell him he wasn't actually autistic. What a cruel way to behave to a vulnerable 21 year old.
Oh, and the 19 year old with Aspergers has, with support, also successfully claimed his PIP! Corrupt and dishonest conviction? I'll let you decide......
