by consensus of the Disability Activism Society

written by Ali Wilkin

edited by John Urquhart

“David*” was 59. He was single, like many disabled and chronically ill people. He had a sister he spoke to often on the phone. He had been unable to work for 25 years. This was due to ME/CFS.

ME/CFS is a post-viral condition that causes severe chronic fatigue, cognitive impairments and can affect mobility, as it did in David’s case. He also had fibromyalgia, an inflammatory disease, and diverticulitis which is a disease that affects the large intestine, and latterly his continence. 

His health had worsened over the past year. He was finding life increasingly difficult. David already struggled with his mobility, but he had suffered several falls and was reporting losing up to a cup of blood in his stools. 

After receiving his PIP forms for reassessment, he found the form hard to complete in good time. As his sister later pointed out, even if he had been able to do so, his mobility had worsened to the point that he would not have been able to get to the post box to send the form back to the DWP.

His PIP was stopped by the DWP on January 4th of this year. 

But David was recovering from an eye infection and he was unable to read his post properly for some time. 

His sister believes he did not know his money had been stopped until after February 1st, which was the date of their last conversation. 

No safeguarding assessment was conducted prior to the termination of his benefit. 

Over the last 15 years disabled people have sought to describe what the government has been inflicting on us by way of the welfare system. 

Very often the language of domestic violence is used, because so often it seems to fit the experience. After all, governments have, since Margaret Thatcher’s day, used the analogy of the domestic income to justify cutting funding to certain departments, or the privatisation of public services, for decades.

Of course the analogy of the domestic income was always problematic - working and middle class households don’t have private standing armies of their own to fund, for example!

But since the announcement of this Labour government’s brutal cuts to PIP and the health component of UC, disabled people have been clear. There has been unity. The hashtag #WelfareNotWarfare arose directly from those recurring conversations we all had - Labour has declared a resumption of a Tory war: their enemy is disabled people. 

But even before Labour’s New Austerity can be fully implemented (if they should be allowed to do so), the hostile environment of Tory Austerity continues to hurt our community terribly. Not least because that long war has claimed another one of us - one of hundreds of thousands so far.

David is believed to have died on February 19th. He was found in appalling circumstances. He had no money to buy pads to manage his diverticulitis. He had no money to put credit on his phone to call for help.

He was found in the most distressing of circumstances; he was covered in blood and faeces, and he had left a handwritten note, describing his desperation and deteriorating health. 

Two weeks after his death, David received a notification from the DWP that his PIP would be reinstated on 20th February - however, disturbingly, David’s sister believes that this decision was only made after the DWP was notified of David’s death on 21st February. 

“It was an absolutely brutal thing to do to a vulnerable person,” David’s sister said. “And I can only imagine the psychological distress that he must have felt when he did read the letter.”

It must be stressed: while the Tories initiated the Austerity that killed David, Labour did nothing in the time since Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister to prevent his death. 

After all, David’s death happened this year, under this Labour government, in a DWP led by a Labour minister - one which is so reviled, so mistrusted, that it is incredibly easy to believe his sister’s suggestion that that a claim be restarted after death, as a face saving exercise. 

David’s circumstances are as unjust, as violent and as profoundly inhumane as Errol Graham’s, Jodey Whiting’s and Philippa Day’s - and these are but a few.

We say it is Liz Kendall, Sir Stephen Timms and, ultimately, Sir Keir Starmer, who must answer for the killing of David. 

But as is only right we give the final words of this statement to David in the form of an excerpt from an email he sent to his sister last summer:

“...I get the lowest amount [of PIP] possible when I am entitled to the full amount possible.

The bloody gov is being so unfair and cruel to the disabled. I got an application form to fill to them the reality of my life.

Like some bad days when I can’t even get to the kitchen to make a cup of tea. 

I simply now did not have the energy to appeal and go to a tribunal in person where three doctors question you.”

* We are choosing to use the same name given to the anonymous gentleman as given in the story by the Disability News Service.