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National Assistance Act and delays in DWP decision to press charges
Hi,
I could really do with some advice on the best way to proceed with a case.
My client is a social housing tenant. Was on ESA, DLA and HB but these all stopped in March 2013.
The DWP are investigating him for fraud and money laundering (he holds a mortgage on a property in Morocco that his parents live in and pay the mortgage for). So far he has had 3 interviews at the police station but the DWP are yet to decide whether to press charges and have given him another interview date in December. All the while he has no income at all, his rent arrears are going postal and his landlords want to evict him. I managed to get a possession hearing adjourned to the next available date after his last DWP interview last week but will have to do that again if the DWP case still isn’t sorted out in December.
The DWP has frozen his bank accounts and taken his passport.
I understand that I can apply for financial support under the National Assistance Act but could do with some guidance on how to go about it.
Also, are there any challenges that could be made to the DWP for the length of time they are taking to investigate considering that he is destitute and at risk of losing his home? He currently has no gas or electricity as he has no money to top up the meters and is surviving on foodbank vouchers and minimal support from his community.
Thanks for your help!
Local authorities can provide assistance under s29 of the NA but usually will not provide money. I can understand why the ESA and HB have stopped by why has the DLA stopped? If the property was in this country and he was not paying the mortgage then the position would be more straight forward as he would probably not have a beneficial interest. However, Moroccan property law could be more complex and I suspect that the delay is due to lack of information provided regarding this property and the ownership issues. Three interviews under caution is unusual and I think we need a lot more information here as there seems more to this than meets the eye.
Thanks for your reply. Some of the lines of questioning have been in relation to his health issues i.e. they saw him carrying a bottle of water but he has stated in medicals that he cannot carry anything at all, so I assume that the DLA has been stopped due to this. Unfortunately we are not funded for this stream of clients to provide general welfare benefits advice and assistance (only housing advice) so I am limited in what I can spend time investigating.
My client advises that under Moroccan law, title deeds and other related paperwork are held by the bank until the mortgage is paid off. The bank won’t release copies with a phone call or to anyone else, so my client would have to go to the bank in person. He can’t do that as the DWP has seized his passport. He cannot pay for a solicitor to act for him in Morocco to get the papers released as his bank account has been frozen and he has no income.
He states that the DWP has mentioned fraud and money laundering but have given him no other guidance. He has a solicitor representing him but says that he finds it difficult to get any information out of them. English is his second language so he doesn’t fully understand everything that is happening in the interviews.
Sorry, I wish I could give more info but this is all I have. I’ve provided forms of authority but no one will speak to me whilst the investigation is ongoing.
He needs specialist local welfare rights advice and preferably from someone familiar with the House of Lords decision in Kerr (attached) concerning getting information from Morocco. See, particularly, paras 56-63.
He needs specialist local welfare rights advice and preferably from someone familiar with the House of Lords decision in Kerr (attached) concerning getting information from Morocco. See, particularly, paras 56-63.
I would start with insisting the DWP provide a Moroccan interpreter. It would then be necesssary to ask for transcripts of the interviews so far and for those questions to be put again to the claimant with the benefit of an interpreter. Lack of an interpreter is clearly and Equality Act issue and should be worthy of a formal complaint.
Unless the claimant has been formally arrested I would then ask that the venue is moved from the local police station even if the police are involved. It’s an IUC and it’s governed by PACE but there’s nothing which confines it to a police station and, if there’s been no arrest, then it’s somewhat inappropriate and heavy-handed.
I would then get a PACE expert to ensure that the interview (as it’s likely to be one long one continuing rather than separate ones) has fully complied with PACE. It’s usually the case that it’s relatively easy to show that it hasn’t. Leading questions etc.
Finally, I would get a WRO into the next interview to start firing questions back at DWP (not in the IUC obviously). I’d be keen to challenge any DLA suspension as “can’t” for DLA is not “cannot, full stop” but “cannot except slowly, or in pain, or with such difficulty such that it cannot be repeated”. The people conducting IUCs have usually been tasked in very basic terms and have a staggering lack of knowledge of the things they’re asking questions about. When you start pushing buttons about the specific benefits it’s surprising how quickly they can backtrack on occasion.
I have had a client accused of similar in the past. There was little doubt the client owned capital and had thus been overpaid but the massive cultural differences in the view of money and the lack of basic IS, HB, CTB and DLA knowledge rather did for the DWP when openly challenged. Clt. ended up with a significant overpayment and, for once, even I couldn’t get them out of recoverability but fraud and money laundering disappeared as soon as I started to query why the police weren’t involved and why DLA would be impacted and why the IS decision had leapt to o/p without supersessions and whether they had any right to interview if benefits hadn’t yet been legally superseded and so on.
Last thing a fraud investiagator wants to be found guilty of is usurping their very restricted powers, especially if they think you might be actively popping up on their future cases. The look of panic in one specific interviewers eyes when I handed in a list of legal queries was a joy to behold given his previous arrogance, aggression and downright nastiness. Hang in there, these things can turn round most surprisingly once you’re on the front foot.