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Forum Home  →  Discussion  →  Disability benefits  →  Thread

press misrepresentation or DWP incompetence?

ClairemHodgson
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Solicitor, SC Law, Harrow

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-stoke-staffordshire-40755365#

I should like to think there’s more gone in to this conviction than is set out in the story, given that work doesn’t disqualify you from DLA or PIP, and that swimming is probably the only exercise someone with severe arthritis etc can do since they’re not weight bearing.

John Birks
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note #fakenews just fact lite news

This story has more detail.

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/crime/2017/07/29/snorkelling-benefits-cheat-guilty-of-81k-fraud/

As for the thread headline - as we know, there is a higher burden of proof so incompetence would more than likely lead to a not guilty verdict.

Narrow Boat and quad biking indeed.

ClairemHodgson
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John Birks - 01 August 2017 08:56 AM

note #fakenews just fact lite news

This story has more detail.

https://www.expressandstar.com/news/crime/2017/07/29/snorkelling-benefits-cheat-guilty-of-81k-fraud/

As for the thread headline - as we know, there is a higher burden of proof so incompetence would more than likely lead to a not guilty verdict.

Narrow Boat and quad biking indeed.

have to say i missed the bit about quad biking until a friend pointed it out to me later…..

on the other hand, i saw my Rheumatology specialist nurse yesterday and this came up for discussion (RA being one of those invisible conditions) and she was a bit “?What?” as couldn’t see from a medical perspective why the woman couldn’t do those things and still be disabled and qualify for benefits.

John Birks
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I’d say the ability to go on a Quad Bike is relative only to the claim made rather than the disability itself.

This is probably where the threshold to prosecute comes from - obvs we only have the court report and not the full detail.

There’s even a video of her arrest on the internet - modern hazard with police work being a form of entertainment.

Paul_Treloar_AgeUK
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The comments from her employer do seem pretty damaging, in that he says she was apparently able to manage stairs, carry trays of drinks around unhindered and that she’d never mentioned any kind of functional limitation to him. But of course, we can’t know the true facts from the rather distorted reporting here.

What does annoy me is that, if this woman has been swinging the lead, she simply undermines the credibility and ability of many other disabled people to receive disability benefits and work at the same time. The loss to the public purse is one thing, the loss to the credibility of disabled people more generally is huge. And in turn, this fuels welfare “reforms” which are even more damaging.

However, for a spectacular piece of nonsense reporting,, I think it might be hard to beat this one Older people worst culprits when it comes to benefit fraud - just how self-selcting can one news story get?

John Birks
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Paul_Treloar_AgeUK - 01 August 2017 10:38 AM

However, for a spectacular piece of nonsense reporting,, I think it might be hard to beat this one Older people worst culprits when it comes to benefit fraud - just how self-selcting can one news story get?

My favourite type of story - An advert for the company that provided the results of a survey of their own company.

paulmoorhouse
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‘more than two thirds of cases involved people over 40. The most honest age group was 18 to 24’... did anybody stop to think about the correlation between the percentage of claimants in a given age group and the percentage of fraudulent claimants?

[ Edited: 1 Aug 2017 at 06:39 pm by paulmoorhouse ]