Widow lives on cheese for 5 weeks in pension blunder
A VULNERABLE widow was forced to survive for five weeks on cheese left over from her husband’s funeral after blundering officials stopped her pension thinking she was dead.
Diane Geraghty, 76, was meant to receive £166.42 a week from her pension and injury disablement benefit to buy food and pay bills.
But the money suddenly stopped in early May after her husband’s death because the Department for Work and Pensions thought she had died due to an “administrative error”.
Mrs Geraghty grew weaker from starvation and lost two stone until a stranger helped her and the pension mix-up was uncovered.
Her “kind and gentle” husband of 25 years Joseph Geraghty, 70, died on April 20.
She made initial inquiries with her bank to find out what had happened as her food supplies ran low, but had no success.
The proud pensioner kept her plight secret from friends and family including two sons who live in America and were unaware of her ordeal.
Mrs Geraghty of Lowestoft, Suffolk, said: “It’s the way I was brought up, to be independent and look after myself.
“I didn’t want to go banging on people’s doors. It would have felt like begging. I lived off leftover cheese from my husband’s funeral. I just had a couple of slices each day.
Weak
“I know it seems mad but I wasn’t thinking straight at the time.”
The lack of food soon began to take its toll on the mourning widow as she became increasingly frail.
She said: “It was horrible. I was confused and upset. I was so weak I thought I was going to die. I didn’t want to go outside because I was all over the place and people would have thought I was drunk.
“I was frightened to use the phone because I didn’t have any money to pay the phone bill. I was so weak I thought I was going to die.
“I had to use my husband’s chairlift because I didn’t have the strength to get up the stairs. I had terrible nerves and didn’t know which way to turn.”
Mrs Geraghty was finally saved in mid-June by an act of kindness from a complete stranger. David Kinsella, 67, was walking by her house when he noticed her looking distressed in the front garden.
He said: “She looked like she was about to burst into tears so I started chatting to her and she told me this awful story.
“The poor lady was in a right state, no money for food or anything at all. She seemed all alone in the world.”
Mr Kinsella explained she could get emergency food from food banks – something about which Mrs Geraghty was completely unaware.
He also offered to help contact the pension department from his phone to sort the issue. Mr Kinsella then took her to a food bank in Lowestoft where she received her first proper meal in more than a month.
Mrs Geraghty said: “David was my saviour. The people at the food bank were so nice. That first slice of bread and butter was heaven. They brought me a cheese and tomato sandwich and a big mug of tea.
“They gave me two big bags of food and a bag of food for the doggies – they had food in from before so didn’t suffer at all, thank God.”
With Mr Kinsella’s help, she was finally able to contact the pensions department and rectify the error.
The Department for Work and Pensions 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. We are carrying out an urgent case review to learn any lessons from this and ensure it does not happen again.”
But Mrs Geraghty is still in disbelief about how the mistake occurred at all. She said: “I think it’s dreadful this happened in the first place. If
‘I thought I was going to die. I didn’t want to bang on doors. It would be like begging’
other elderly people are going through this, they could starve to death. It’s an awful thing I wouldn’t want anyone to go through.”
Ben Parish, who helps run the food bank that helped Mrs Geraghty, said her weeks of suffering highlighted the essential work they do.
He said: “The reality is due to low income or delays in benefits people are struggling to feed themselves and their household.”