appeal after convition

Help nneded quickly, I have a client who is attening a DLA appeal hearing to argue that the decision removing her award was wrong and that on the facts of her disability she is still entitled, however she pleaded guilty at Mags court to fraud for the same DLA award, Question,  does the tribunal have to follow the Mags court and so will the appeal be bound to fail,The DWP say this is the case ??

The claimant cannot resile from any factual admissions made in the criminal case, but how those facts impact on DLA entitlement is still a matter for the Tribunal.

There is an HB case (don’t have reference handy) where the claimant admitted in the criminal case that she and her estranged husband were not really all that estranged, because the alternative was that she faced a more serious charge of mortgage fraud.  She then tried to argue in the HB appeal that she had only made the admission on legal advice to avoid a more serious criminal charge - the truth, she insisted, was that she and her husband were indeed estranged.  The UT said that any facts she had owned up to in the criminal case would have to be accepted as a given in the HB appeal, but the re-hearing Tribunal would still have to be careful about just exactly what had been admitted as a fact in the criminal case.  It wouldn’t necessarily mean they were a couple for means testing purposes.

So your claimant might have admitted to being a member of a kick-boxing club and that is a fact she cannot back-track on in the Tribunal appeal, but the Tribunal might still find that she is entitled to DLA(m).

many thanks HBA