‘Typical case of everyday injustices at the hands of the DWP’

Solicitor Graham Tegg, a benefits law expert from the Kent Law Clinic, says Mrs Geale’s case is typical of the DWP’S dealings with many welfare claimants.

“We decided to take the case on because it’s an example all too frequent of the everyday injustices that local people experience at the hands of the DWP,” he said.

“Mrs Geale had gone through the tribunal justice system and they had found against her, against all of the legal principles.

“The reason the judgement is very welcome is because it shows that individuals’ own common sense and their notion of what is right and proper is vindicated and shown to be correct.

“If you persist in the end, you succeed. But it shouldn’t take a solicitor with 20-plus years of social security law to point out that the principle that was decided over 40 years ago is correct.”

The principle in social security law is the claimant is to be believed unless the authority makes a decision the person is either not telling the truth or what they say is inherently improbable.

“The DWP making an administrative error is not inherently improbable – sadly it is an everyday fact.”

“This is perhaps the worst example, but we are frequently asked to advise people with physical or mental health problems unable to attend DWP or disability service appointments. Very often they are either not believed or, worse, they think they won’t be believed.”

Benefits law expert Graham Tegg