Tribunal & Legal Challenges - Flawed PIP Assessment

Thank you Blueberry Owl I love your username. Also even bigger thanks as your message also encouraged me to re-read the thread and I've found something from another user which hopefully means my award/points should not be reduced. I agree, the entire system is a disgrace and a shambles, but deliberately so.

Hi Gaddy,

Thank you so much for this message. It really helped me to hear you had been through a similar or the same experience. It feels like everywhere I looked, most people were saying that their Tribunal hearing had been positive, they had a positive panel, weren't subjected to any 'interrogation', etc. Until I read your post, I just thought I'd been spectacularly unlucky.

And no, it definitely IS traumatic and IMO it should be illegal to subject anyone to this kind of experience. Just to emphasise that it is traumatic, I didn't sleep all night on Friday and was exhausted on Saturday and felt like a zombie. Lack of sleep/no sleep is a sign of PTSD. I know this already as I was a victim of crime in mid Feb and also could not sleep for 2 days afterwards and had to call my GP for sleeping pills simply so I would calm down. So I've had a pretty crummy month. But this experience is traumatic and nobody deserves to be subjected to that simply because they've asked for state aid/help. It is horrendous.

As for anything else, I actually don't care anymore. I've discovered my current award can't/likely won't be reduced, so that made me feel a lot better. But I will keep everyone posted. Thank you SO much again, really needed to hear your words

Hi Denby,

Thank you very much for your input and rightful anger/passion. It really helped to hear it. No I'm not ND but I did actually take another test after reading your post I do think I have ND traits, such as finding it impossible to talk to strangers/make small talk and feeling at ease in my own company/not wanting or having any desire to socialise. But I'm also able to read people well, pick up on words/emotions and I'm very emotionally astute/aware, so it balances out.

Fully agree there is some kind of agenda against claimants who are well informed. It's outrageous. I think it's because yes, the panel are effectively 'powerless' against a claimant who is aware of the regulations that apply. So perhaps they decide to subject you to very hostile treatment to make sure you don't get an 'easy' time of it. Who knows. It is totally unacceptable, though. This disgusting treatment wouldn't happen to a lawyer or someone who decided to represent themselves in a court of law, so why should it happen to us?!

Hi MD
I am so sorry you had this awful experience, and the wait for a letter is agonising. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you, but do let us know the outcome. I hope it went better than it felt, I think it is often hard to tell with these things but it obviously was very uncomfortable and difficult for you.
All the best
Anji

Hi,

I just wanted to say a massive thank you to all who have replied to this thread, especially my posts since last week.

Everyone has helped me enormously, even though you may not realise it.

This is a truly wonderful place and I'm so thankful I found it and became a member and renewed recently. It is a lifeline when you need it the most and the advice and opinions and experiences you can read about on it are second to none.

Thanks to a member posting a short comment about how they had read the thread, I went back through it myself on Friday evening and I found a post from LL26 I think, who said the following:

This is important because the tribunal can not remove points or reduce an award unless it clearly announces that this is a possibility. It is an error of law to reduce an award without a warning. If a tribunal is minded to reduce the current award, it should give a warning, and adjourn the hearing to allow you to speak with your representative if you have one, or adjourn until a different day to allow you to seek proper advice. A warning doesn't necessarily means an award will get reduced, but just that it might be.

After reading this, I gradually calmed down. My biggest fear after that horrendous Tribunal was that they'd strip me of my current points/award. But the panel failed to give me any warning this would happen, so I don't believe this will happen now. Can I say a huge thanks to LL26 as this post really helped me to calm down over the weekend. I totally forgot about all the earlier advice I'd been given as this has been going on for so long, but reading the thread again has proved to be invaluable for my state of mind, and finally helping me to get some sleep

Also, I want to add something. I feel I was incredibly naïve before my Tribunal experience. I had read many 'warnings' about how stressful the experience would be and it was worth seriously thinking about whether you were up to it. I thought this was referring to the entire process of sorting papers out, waiting for a hearing, etc rather than the actual Tribunal. Also as I'd read and heard so much about Tribunal panels being much kinder to claimants than the DWP are, I again naively thought that the hearing would not be so awful to undergo.

I was really wrong and I'd like this to serve as a warning to people who are considering going to a PIP Tribunal. Please make sure you are mentally and physically prepared to be bullied relentlessly for up to 2 hours (inc a break) because it is just as likely you will not get a 'nice' or kind panel. If you do, it is a bonus and you're extremely lucky. But I really needed to hear something like this so I was sufficiently mentally and physically prepared to undergo this onslaught, and I never did.

Another kind member has also posted that they had a similar experience and described the aftermath as being traumatic. That is exactly how I felt on Friday and over the weekend. I would go as far as to say I had PTSD and probably still do. I know this because I was also a victim of crime just this past month - something I could not have foreseen - and could not sleep at all for the following two nights, so I had to ask my GP for sleeping pills. I had the same night of no sleep again on Friday night, even though I knew by then the Tribunal could not strip me of my points after re-reading this thread. I could not stop thinking and reliving the experience, it was brutal and it's licensed bullying.

I cannot believe this is what our country subjects us to. It is a degrading and humiliating process and I really urge everyone to be as mentally and physically prepared as they can be, and also to prepare for dealing with the severe trauma afterwards.

I feel calmer now I know I likely won't be stripped of points, however I also am beyond caring if I'll get an enhanced award or not. I know I was right to pursue it and I fulfil the descriptors to have received one, but really, it feels like it's really not worth the trauma and humiliation of going to a Tribunal hearing. My mum told me to leave it, she is on DLA middle rate for Trachoma and a few other conditions, and said she didn't think it was worth going to Tribunal to challenge the award. When she saw me in tears she said this again, she said it was not worth it.

Sadly this is how I feel. Even if I do get an enhanced award - which I am not expecting - it will feel like a hollow victory.

I think this is how the system wants us to feel, which is even more tragic.

I will of course post when I hear the result. But in the meantime, thanks to all of you who have been kind enough to post on here, it really helped me a lot on Friday and over the weekend. This is a great place and more people should know about it