Widow ate leftover cheese after DWP thought her dead

A WIDOW was forced to live off cheese leftovers from her husband’s funeral for six weeks after she stopped receiving pension payments following his death.

Diane Geraghty, from Lowestoft, Suffolk, was left starving when the money she depended on to buy food and pay bills stopped in May because it was thought she had died. On April 20, Mrs Geraghty lost Joseph, her husband of 25 years.

The 76-year-old is meant to receive £166.42 each week from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP). However, from early May until July she received nothing after an “administrative error” stated she had died.

Mrs Geraghty kept the issue secret from family and friends. She was helped in mid-june by David Kinsella, 67, who saw her looking distressed in her garden.

A spokesman for the DWP said: “We apologise unreservedly for the disruption to Mrs Geraghty’s State Pension and Disability Living Allowance payment, which resulted from an administrative error. We issued an arrears payment on July 2, as soon as we became aware of the problem and the correct payment schedule has now been restored.”

The DWP is carrying out an urgent case review to prevent a repeat of the error.