Decade-long quest for justice ‘proves DWP was responsible for our father’s death’

Two children of a disabled man whose suicide was triggered by being wrongly found “fit for work” have told MPs how their decade-long search for justice has proved the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) was responsible for their father’s death.

Anne-Marie and Declan O’Sullivan have told the Commons work and pensions committee that completing “what feels like a 100,000-piece puzzle”, following a 10-year investigation, has “eliminated” any uncertainty and shows clearly that DWP breached its duty of care to their father, Michael.

They have now called on MPs to demand a change in the law to ensure that a new legal duty of care is placed upon the department.

And they have told the committee they believe DWP will only be forced to take responsibility for its “actions and omissions” if the government imposes a “clear and defined” statutory duty of care on the department.

They believe DWP “cannot be trusted to act appropriately” and that imposing a statutory duty of care is the only way to protect the lives of claimants in vulnerable situations, such as their father.

They have also joined those calling for an independent inquiry into how the actions and failings of DWP can be linked to countless deaths of disabled claimants of benefits.

They submitted the written statement to the committee as part of its ongoing inquiry into safeguarding vulnerable benefit claimants, and as disabled campaigners are preparing to give evidence to the UN committee on the rights of persons with disabilities in Geneva later this month.

The UN committee will be examining the government’s progress since being found guilty in 2016 of grave and systematic violations of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, with most of those breaches caused by policies introduced by Conservative DWP ministers.

It is now more than 10 years since coroner Mary Hassell concluded in January 2014 that the “intense anxiety” that triggered the suicide of Michael O’Sullivan, from north London, had been caused by his being found fit for work by DWP.

She found that both DWP and its private sector contractor Atos had failed to seek medical evidence about his mental health from his doctor, his psychiatrist and his clinical psychologist.

He was found fit for work, despite a suicide attempt months earlier when he had been forced into work-related activity after an earlier work capability assessment (WCA) that lasted just 12 minutes.

If DWP or Atos had asked the medical experts who knew him best, they would have been told he had experienced years of significant mental ill-health, and that he was not well enough to work, and had been diagnosed with long-term depression, anxiety and panic disorder with agoraphobia.

His children told the committee in their statement that the “fit for work” finding “was causative of our father’s death; that is the unpalatable cold hard fact”.

They warn in their statement of the “danger of repeating mistakes from the past” by failing to consider “the truly harrowing impact” that reforms to the system can have on claimants like their father, who took his own life in September 2013.

They point out that DWP failed to share crucial evidence with five independent reviews into the WCA process, which took place between 2010 and 2014.

This evidence included numerous secret peer reviews carried out by the department into deaths linked to the WCA and two prevention of future deaths reports written by coroners, one written by Hassell after the inquest into their father’s death and another that followed an inquest into the death of Stephen Carré in March 2010.

They say in their statement that their evidence had been submitted in the name of their much-loved father, and in memory of welfare rights expert Nick Dilworth, who supported the family with their investigation for nearly a decade before his death last year.

They also praise the “unwavering” support they have received from their local MP, Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer, and his senior caseworker Richard Banham, and their “decency, compassion and sensitivity”.

After more than a decade of fighting for justice over their father’s death, their complaint is now being investigated by the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman.

But they criticise the “inordinate” length of time that DWP and the Independent Case Examiner have taken to respond to their concerns.

They say they have wasted 11 years because of DWP’s “delaying tactics to try and wear us down and insult us”, which have “exacerbated an already difficult bereavement, prevented a natural course of grieving and blocked us from moving forward with our lives”.

They conclude: “The DWP will no doubt say to this Committee that they have learnt lessons in order to improve how they deal with their vulnerable clients, but they haven’t been able to say what they have specifically learnt from our father’s case or exactly what failings they have addressed.

“We would argue that the DWP are unable to improve anything when they haven’t faced or defined their own past failings.”

Picture: Sir Keir Starmer (left) and Nick Dilworth deliver documents about the case to 10 Downing Street in November 2017

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