The Day The Tide Turned

As readers of this website and JSUK News will know, I have offered my help to people who cannot complain or appeal to the Jobcentre Plus/Department for Work and Pensions, and have successfully helped many people in getting justice.

Over the past week I have been trying to help a 52 year old lady, who I shall call “Lilly”, who had her Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) stopped in April 2014 when she was too ill to attend an interview, which both her doctor and cardiologist confirmed, and she subsequently suffered a heart attack in July due to the stress inflicted upon her by the DWP as they said they would not pay her until she had attended the assessment interview.

She subsequently suffered a heart attack in July due to the stress inflicted upon her by the DWP

Her doctor and cardiologist have both instructed her that she must not correspond with the DWP at least until after completing her 26 weeks of cardiac rehabilitation she has to endure due to the heart attack caused by the stress of having no money and having to fight tooth and nail to try get it back from the DWP. All they keep saying is that she must attend the assessment interview before they can pay her, which is taking the pettiness of bureaucracy to a whole new level considering she is now unable to do anything until well into the new year, all thanks to the DWP.

Anyway, Lilly sent me a letter of authority by email and I had attempted to get this to my local Jobcentre Plus at Crossfield House in Halifax so they could send it onto whomever dealt with such things. A few days passed and I still hadn’t heard back from the Jobcentre Plus so I decided to go back to the office and take the letter of authority again, except this time I would insist that they confirm the authority with Lilly while I was present in the Jobcentre Plus office.

I went to the office on Thursday the 11th of September 2014 and I also took a Subject Access Request for myself, and I had the foresight to also prepare a Cease and Desist letter to give to them as I was fed up of the continuous harassment and victimisation I experienced practically every time I had to interact with the Jobcentre Plus or DWP. As these documents were quite important, I decided to record the entire visit so I could later rely on it as evidence, if required.

I got to the Jobcentre Plus at Crossfield House, Halifax (wearing my “No Benefit Sanctions” protest t-shirt, of course) and made an appointment to see an adviser. I wasn’t waiting too long before I was called over by an adviser named Jan. I gave her the letter of authority from Lilly and explained that I wanted her to call Lilly while I was there and confirm that I had authority to handle the claim on Lilly’s behalf.

Jan said she couldn’t accept the letter as it wasn’t signed and I asked her to call Lilly to confirm her details and then speak to me about the claim. She said that she wasn’t willing to do so as she claimed that I “could have just written that email” but I quickly informed her that that is why I asked her to call Lilly to confirm the details. I could quickly see that she was simply treating me like most of the other staff treat me so I asked her to get a manager, which is the point at which I realised my camera wasn’t recording so I quickly got my phone out and put it onto record the audio, which can be heard below.

The Subject Access Request (SAR)

Marcus then asked me if there was anything else he could help with (he knew there was as he could see me waiting to pass on the next letters). I told him that there were two more things and handed him the Subject Access Request (SAR) which I had printed out just prior to going to the Jobcentre Plus as I wanted all my information sending to me for use as evidence in the legal case I and others are building against the Department for Work and Pensions.

They accepted the letter and I then handed over the £10.00 fee which can be requested to cover the costs of providing the information requested in the Subject Access Request. Jan said that she couldn’t accept the money so I tried to give it to Marcus and he then informed me that they didn’t charge a fee for SARs. I asked them if they would put that in writing for me as if they requested a fee later, the 40 day time limit for responding only starts when that fee is paid, and I don’t trust the DWP after how they have previously treated me.

Both Jan and Marcus refused to put it in writing for me and stressed the point that there wasn’t a fee to pay. I then turned and said I would have to get the people sat behind me to bear witness that both Jan and Marcus said there was no fee payable and Jan said “we’re not involving third parties”, so I then turned to a man sat behind me and asked if he would witness the fact that they said no fee was payable. At that point, Jan stood up and said she was calling security and refused to continue the interview.

Jan stood up and said she was calling security and refused to continue the interview.

Security came over and asked me to leave, but I told them that I wasn’t being unreasonable, yet Jan said that she thought I was being unreasonable. Fortunately, the security guard was the guy who liked my “No Benefit Sanctions” protest t-shirt and only halfheartedly asked me to leave as he actually supported my cause. I asked if there was another adviser who was prepared to conduct the interview as all my requests were legitimate and I wasn’t acting in any manner which would warrant security removing me from the premises. Marcus continued the interview and security hung back for a while. By this point there were four burly G4S security guards (*any resemblance is purely coincidental. And possibly fake) surrounding me, waiting for Marcus to finish so they could “escort” me from the building.

I then explained to Marcus that I wanted confirmation that no fee was payable due to not wanting any delays with the response as the 40 day response limit only starts from the day you pay the £10.00 fee. He was stunned into silence and simply repeated his earlier response that he was going to send it to the “district office”. He then further refused to accept the £10.00 fee and claimed he couldn’t take the money from me, which is incorrect in law; any employee or representative of the company from which you request the data has to accept the Subject Access Request and the fee and then send it on to the nominated Data Protection Officer for that organisation.

Security then asked me to leave as they thought my business was concluded, however, I still had one last letter to give them. A Cease and Desist letter.

The Cease and Desist Letter

I appealed to the semi-friendly security guard with a “come on?!”, as if to let him know that I knew he knew there was no valid reason to ask me to leave. Marcus was still confirming that there was no charge and I informed them that I had one last letter to give them. By this time, the three most burly security guards were within inches of my face but I refused to be intimidated as I knew that the next letter was going to knock them for six.

I handed Marcus the Cease and Desist order and all went silent as I told them that now he had accepted the letter on behalf of the Department for Work and Pensions, any further harassing, bullying or victimising behaviour, including being asked to leave for no valid reason. After a moment, security then tried to get me to leave but I insisted on waiting until Marcus had read the letter, and I also informed them of more details of the Cease and Desist order, which made the security team take a good few steps back and they all had fear in their eyes as I eyeballed each and everyone of them to make sure they knew that the order applied to them too.

I then concluded my business by requesting that the letter of authority issue be taken forward and Marcus responded with the party line of “bring it in with a signature and we will gladly sort it out for you”. I then informed Marcus that I would be doing something more about it and then I left of my own free will and the security staff didn’t bother “escorting” me as they were still reeling from being slapped with the threat of criminal charges if they dared to “escort” me off the premises.

Game, set and match to Harper. And you know what? They have treat me with the utmost respect since then