Universal credit migration and the death of David Panther

An autistic circus skills teacher took his own life after becoming increasingly distressed by the bureaucratic chaos caused by his “migration” to universal credit, which led to him facing a new £500 monthly charge for his social care package.

David Panther (pictured) took his own life on 31 January, after weeks of mounting distress that had led to a breakdown in December.

He had repeatedly requested an invoice from Sheffield City Council that would show how he could clear the arrears that had built up on care charges that had suddenly been imposed more than a year after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) forced him to move to universal credit.

He was particularly concerned about the possibility that the council could pass on his debt to bailiffs, and that they would seize his possessions.

A few days before Christmas, a month before he died, he said in an email to a council officer: “As I have clearly stated to you and your colleagues, the best way to prevent further damage to my mental health is to allow me to clear my contributions debt by issuing me with a one-off invoice.”

He had attached a note from Victoria Naughton, a social security adviser with the performing arts union Equity, who had supported him with his DWP problems and warned the council: “I am asking that you urgently provide to Mr Panther an invoice so that he can pay the social care contribution payments he owes to the local authority.

“Not doing so is causing a significant risk to Mr Panther’s mental health.”

Following further email exchanges with the council, it is believed Panther had been expecting this invoice to be emailed on a certain day in late January.

When it failed to arrive, he appears to have decided that he could not continue any longer with the bureaucratic nightmare the migration process had caused.

His body was found eight days later, following a lengthy search.

The previous month he had answered a public call by Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) for disabled people to come forward if they were facing increased care charges, higher council tax demands, or rent hikes, after being migrated onto universal credit.

He told DPAC in an email on 10 December about the impact of the migration and how he was now losing out by £500 a month.

He wrote: “This has caused a break down in me and a lot of anxiety about how I will cope with getting by with £500 less every month, and I am hoping to challenge this damaging policy which I am sure is also hurting many others who are in similar circumstance.”

DPAC had discussed the possibility of a legal case, but Panther decided the process of seeking a judicial review would be too stressful.

Only last week, DWP published new research on the universal credit migration process which found that claimants with “lower digital confidence, sometimes compounded by mental or physical health problems” could find ongoing tasks associated with their universal credit claim “overwhelming”, with many experiencing “anxiety and hypervigilance”.

Those who supported him said David Panther found interaction with organisations such as DWP and the local council incredibly difficult, and it was the interactions with the council – which resulted from the migration – that he found most difficult in the months leading to his death.

He particularly became distressed and anxious if there was any lack of certainty when he dealt with bureaucracy, such as unanswered letters or emails, and – as Naughton told the council in December – he felt “enormous pressure to understand the system and get it right” and was “unable to cope with uncertainty or ambiguity”.

Mark Powell, founder of employment support charity Yes2Ventures, who spoke to him almost every day for nine years as his support worker – paid for through his social care package – would often receive phone calls from Panther in which he could only hear “low-level crying” due to distress that had been caused by some bureaucratic error.

Powell said: “He couldn’t find the words to say how devastating it was that he hadn’t got a reply to his email, or they couldn’t do what he had asked them to do.”

Panther had told Powell before the universal credit migration that he was not sure if he would survive the process.

During spring and summer 2024, Naughton had spoken to him for many hours about the imminent migration process, a change which caused him “extreme distress and frequent suicidal thoughts” and left him “terrified”.

He told her repeatedly that life was not worth living if he had to engage with DWP and the local council.

Naughton told Disability News Service (DNS): “The uncertainty was very, very difficult for him. We are all so used to being ground down by DWP, but he found all of that so difficult.”

As it happened, the migration, in July 2024, was comparatively smooth, and he moved from working tax credit and housing benefit onto universal credit, while his personal independence payment was unaffected.

He had been receiving working tax credit rather than employment and support allowance because he taught classes for a few hours a week in juggling, unicycling and other circus skills, as well as crafts such as origami.

After the migration, he was found eligible for the limited capability for work-related activity part of universal credit, after a work capability assessment that was carried out without the need for an appointment and found him not fit for work.

It was only 12 months later, when Sheffield City Council began questioning the change in his financial situation, that the problems caused by universal credit started to interfere with his life.

In October 2025, the council told Panther that he would need to start paying £129 a week towards his care package, when previously he had paid nothing.

Although it is not yet clear exactly why Sheffield took this step, many other local authorities have been treating most of disabled people’s universal credit as income, when previously they disregarded significant parts of their previous “legacy” benefits, including disability premiums.

The council’s actions may have been connected to the disability premiums issue, or a national earnings disregard linked to working tax credit and his move from tax credits onto the health element of universal credit.

Whatever the reason for the new monthly charge, the decision was followed by months of emails, phone calls, letters and confusion as Panther tried to persuade the council to provide him with an invoice that would allow him to clear his new care charges debt.

Powell said he believes it was the “cruel principle of the sudden change” and the “unfairness” of having to pay £500, when most months he was unlikely to use more than £500 of his care package, that “got to him”.

He said: “After years of negotiating a flexible care package with built-in protection against unforeseen events, he now saw that he was getting nothing.”

But he was also deeply concerned that needing to have hundreds of pounds extra in one of his accounts to pay for this charge would nudge DWP into launching a fraud investigation.

Panther’s sister-in-law, Ruth Panther, said he was a “thoughtful, kind and patient man”, a “real details man, very, very clever”, but he had found dealing with other people increasingly difficult as he grew older.

She said his mother had offered over Christmas to pay the £500 a month, but he found it impossible to accept such an offer.

As a result of the universal credit migration, he had become “increasingly anxious and distressed over how social care were dealing with his payments and refunds”.

The council had failed to answer his questions and “nobody emailed when they said they would”, said Ruth Panther.

Powell told DNS that David Panther was “a very talented man, a tremendous teacher, particularly of children, in circus skills.

“His performing ability was phenomenal, but he didn’t want to be that person, communicating with an audience, so he would teach.”

He was devoted to his pets, including his cats, snakes – including a six-foot python – and lizards.

Powell said: ‘It’s a tragedy that it ever had to happen. Bureaucracy got him in the end, as he always knew it would.”

His body was eventually found on wasteland after an eight-day search, triggered by an email he had sent Powell on the day he died, 31 January, apparently scheduled to be sent at 1pm after he had already taken his own life.

The email said only: “Hi Mark,

Key is in the compost bin.

Please get Jay and Arrietty to Cat-ching, or, if it can work, feel free to adopt them yourself.

Tell my Mum I love her and am so very sorry.

Thank you for all your support.

David.”

Naughton said Panther’s tragic death – and the way social care direct payments are treated as capital by DWP – has highlighted serious flaws within the universal credit process that deals with how claimants report their savings, and how DWP decides what is and is not counted as savings.

She said the Department of Health and Social Care had raised concerns about whether money received from a local authority into a direct payments account should be counted as savings by DWP.

She said DWP was refusing to fix the capital reporting process, even though she believes it is “fundamentally flawed” and unlawful.

She told DNS: “It caused David an enormous amount of concern and it showed just how difficult it is to get things right with universal credit.”

His death also highlights the continuing flaws within DWP.

Naughton said: “DWP needs to improve. Claimants need to know they will get the right answer when they ask a question.

“We see in our casework that the quality of response from DWP [when a claimant asks questions about their benefits] is often poor.

“It’s in everybody’s interest for DWP to get things right and reduce the friction for people going through the system, so that for people like David, this sort of thing doesn’t happen.”

She fears there “absolutely” are other disabled people like David Panther who are being affected in similar ways by DWP and its universal credit migration.

She said: “They have designed this system, so why did they not get it right before they moved everybody across?

“They knew these errors were there. Why move everybody across [before they were fixed]? It is absolutely not the right way to run an organisation professionally.”

Linda Burnip, co-founder of DPAC, was critical of Sheffield council’s failures to support and reassure David Panther in the way he needed.

And she said DPAC had raised concerns with the Department of Health and Social Care about the impact of the migration process on care charges.

She said: “Someone somewhere needs to address these issues urgently before more disabled people die when their deaths could be prevented.”

She added: “The totally unnecessary death of David is not only tragic but highlights how years of public sector cuts and the disgraceful cavalier attitude of DWP towards the safeguarding of claimants with high needs continues to push people to suicide.

“DWP must be aware of the harm their policies when forcing people to migrate to UC are having yet they continue to refuse to pause that process or make the changes needed to make it safer for disabled people to navigate.”

An inquest into the death of David Panther is expected to take place later this year.

Matt Bowsher, strategic director of adult care and wellbeing at Sheffield City Council, said: “David’s death is a tragedy, and we continue to send our condolences and thoughts to David’s family on the loss of their son.

“We await the findings and evidence arising from the inquest into David’s death and it would be inappropriate for us to comment on David’s case at this stage.

“When the coroner’s inquest has concluded, the council will carefully review the findings and consider next steps.”

The Department for Work and Pensions had not commented by noon today (Thursday), despite being contacted about the death of David Panther on Tuesday morning.

*The following organisations are among those that could be able to offer support if you have been affected by the issues raised in this article:  Mind, Papyrus, Rethink, Samaritans, and SOS Silence of Suicide