Man Out Of Work For 25 Years Smashes Up JobCentre And Shows Knife When Threatened With Benefits Being Stopped
A benefits claimant who has not worked for 25 years trashed a Job Centre and brandished a knife after being told he would lose his payments if he didn’t try harder to get a job.
Gerald Taylor, 40, was locked in a 90-minute stand-off with police after being told his benefits could be axed at Fleetwood Job Centre in Lancashire.
Preston Crown Court heard Taylor was ‘aggressive and argumentative’ at an appointment on January 26 after advisors raised concerned about his efforts to find employment.
Taylor, from South Shore, Blackpool, threatened that the centre should be torched and stormed out of the building, before returning 45 minutes later with a hammer and smashing two windows.
The jobseeker, whose 59 previous convictions include burglary and arson, was disarmed by a passer-by, but later pulled out the knife as officers arrived at the scene.
Harry Pepper, prosecuting, said: ‘He was holding the knife to his wrist.
‘When not doing that officers saw he was waving it around and demanding to speak to a Job Centre employee about his benefits.’
The court heard Taylor told police he had been out of work for 25 years due to his lengthy list of convictions and his lack of experience.
David Traynor, defending, said: ‘He had no funds to make phone calls to get jobs.
‘In the week before this incident he had found five jobs he wanted to apply for, but had no credit or money to make those phone calls.’
Taylor was sentenced to 42 weeks in prison after pleading guilty to threatening behaviour, criminal damage and possessing a bladed article.
Judge Christopher Cornwall told Taylor: ‘You are a man with no self control.
Taylor smashed windows with a hammer before pulling out the knife at Fleetwood Job Centre in Lancashire. The jobseeker, who has 59 previous convictions, was jailed for 42 weeks at Preston Crown Court
‘If thwarted as you were, or perceived you were, you react in this wholly unacceptable way.’
The judge added his actions were a ‘complete waste of police time’
‘It is a pretty remarkable feature of this case that you held however many police officers at bay for over one and a half hours – a complete waste of police time,’ he said.
‘Those officers really were not to know just exactly how an unpredictable man was actually going to behave.
‘Was he suddenly going to make a run at them or not?’
A spokesman for the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) said: ‘If you are claiming Jobseekers Allowance the rules are that you have got to be available for work and actively looking for work.
‘If you don’t do that you could be sanctioned. Whether his case is exceptional or not it is almost impossible to say.’
Same Difference 
Reblogged this on Will the real reality please stand up!.
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The DWP, through JC+ are pushing and pushing with their dehumanising tactics. They enjoy this kind of outcome for us, unemployed people.
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What an absolute scumbag..there is NO EXCUSE WHATSOEVER to be out of work for one year, let alone 25!
Guy is worthless, total waste of skin..end of.
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Really ? My boyfriend has been unemployed for more than a year (he does all the things he’s MEANT to do you moron in order to claim JSA and STILL hasn’t got a job BECAUSE THERE AREN’T ANY!) and he’s not a scumbag – he’s the sweetest , kindest man there is who looks after me and is considerate and understanding of my mental health problems – which as it happens has rendered me unable to EVER work . I’m SURE YOU IN YOUR INFINITE WISDOM WOULD HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT THAT . I’m 39 now and have been ill since 13 . Great fun . Do you think that’s easy ? Breakdown afeter fucking breakdown?
It is an eternal pity that creatures like you haven’t the brains to think and reflect before saying the utter tripe that you do .
My boyfriend is more of a man than you’ll ever be – judging purely on the evidence you have given – but then that’s a step up from excoriating all unemployed people you’ve never even met .
I know putting my head over the parapet or chopping block saying this , putting myslef up as cannon fodder for hard-working people such as yourself but you know , I’m so sick of keeping quiet wheras self -satisfied imbeciles such as yourself constanly spout your ill informed , pig ignorant invective. .
To paraphrase your own words There is NO EXCUSE WHATSOVER to be an ignorant , compassionless SCUMBAG , such as yourself .
You sir , are worthless ,a total waste of skin and embryonic fluid .
My boyfriend is a man to proud of , not a self righteous twerp such as you .
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Reblogged this on sdbast.
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And you Jason are a waste of human life. God help you if you ever fall out of work.
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thumbs up
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To Darren I mean
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The facts don’t add up. He is 40 yrs old but been out of work for 25yrs. 25 yrs ago he was fifteen and at school. Tory propaganda. However it will only be time before someone snaps and there will be serious crimes commited as a result of the inhumane way in which the poor and unemployed are treated by IDS’s DWP.
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Reblogged this on lawrencerowntree.
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25 years? Obviously an oxygen thief of no useful purpose. They should of thrown away the key.
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So why was he not sanctioned years ago? 25 years unemployed is a joke, what an uttet Douchebag. How can anyone scrounge for that long? Should be a 6 month limit on JSA!
Time to toughen up the Sanction Regime..come on DWP..pull your fingers out
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I don’t agree with what the man did but there is a growing sense of frustration from normal folk about the methods and dehumanising of people with genuine problems!
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SANCTIONS ARE KILLING PEOPLE
Sanctions are murder by design because they are many months long, when medical fact is that on average it takes a month to starve to death.
THE 750 JOBCENTRES NOT WORTH BEING IN EXISTENCE
This criminal stated he did not have funds to make phone calls for jobs.
So why did not the Jobcentre provide a free phone facility?
While the Jobcentres are going to make staff redundant and waste money on IT when they go digital during this year.
Meanwhile the DWP waste money on the trebling of staff of sanction decision-makers.
If there was no admin but a few security officers, and just free phone and free CV templates, then the billions wasted on state and private welfare admin could be saved for the NHS.
97 per cent of the benefit bill is to poor pensioners and those in work, with just 3 per cent on the unemployed.
It would be cheaper to just pay benefit without conditions and so have minimal admin costs. No building, no staff, and no other admin costs.
EVERYONE IS A TAXPAYER BAR NONE
But even criminals with ill gotten gains go out and buy things, and therefore pay
the 75 per cent of all taxes that come from taxes embedded in every day things,
even if you pay not one penny in income tax.
So benefit is not other taxpayers’ money, but the money of those receiving benefit.
SANCTIONS THREATEN LIVES NOT JUST OF UNEMPLOYED
BUT OF THOSE IN LOW PAID WORK
Sanctions are hitting:
– seriously disabled and chronic sick of all ages,
– heavily pregnant mothers causing the threat to life of mother and baby by premature birth,
– mothers with new babies,
– working families with children,
– homelessness in young men and women, and
– older people right up to 66 or even up to 76 by the raised retirement age and
rules of the new Universal Credit slowing being brought in.
Universal Credit will result in permanent sanctions, because the Hardship Payments will become recoverable loans from future benefit or job, so nil food money even if get into work.
Even to those in work from 2016-2017 under UC, on part time hours, will get sanctioned off Universal Credit that replaces working tax credits, for not doing the miracle of moving to full time hours, when most of the jobs created since 2010 have been low paid part time employment.
Currently and completely under UC, housing benefit is stopped when sanctioned.
BENEFIT IS A ROUND ROBIN OF FUNDING
The poor on benefit are, along with poor pensioners, the bulk of the people left shopping in the town centres.
Just look at the pound shops and charities lining the high street.
So not only do the poor pay taxes from stealth indirect taxes, especially on cigarettes and alcohol, but also provide the business taxes from shops in town centres.
THERE IS A BETTER WAY
SEE HOW AT:
http://www.anastasia-england.me.uk
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Reblogged this on Britain Isn't Eating.
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