A vulnerable claimant starved to death after having his ESA stopped, Disability News Service has revealed.
Errol Graham, 57, was a vulnerable claimant with a history of serious mental health issues which had led to his being sectioned in the past.
He had been in receipt of benefits for many years because his condition meant he could not work.
In August 2017 he failed to attend a work capability assessment.
The DWP made two home visits to Errol but got no response.
They then stopped his ESA in October 2017 and made no attempt to contact social services or any other agency, in spite of the fact that he was now a vulnerable claimant with no means of support.
The local authority then stopped his housing benefit and Errol had also previously been refused PIP.
Still no attempt was made to contact social services or any other agency.
The only people who came to his door were the bailiffs in June 2018, when they broke it down to evict him from his council flat for non-payment of rent.
But when they got inside they found the emaciated body of Errol, who had died weighing just four and a half stone.
The coroner at Errol’s inquest last year said that the “safety net that should surround vulnerable people like Errol in our society had holes within it”.
However, she decided not to write a prevention of future deaths report telling the DWP what steps it should take to improve its system, because the DWP insisted it was already reviewing its safeguarding system and would complete a review in the Autumn.
There is still no sign of that review.
The DWP employed a leading barrister at taxpayers expense to represent them at the inquest.
Errol’s family could not afford legal representation of any sort.
