15-05-2025
My father-in-law starved to death after his benefits were stopped. I'm disgusted with the DWP's response
The daughter-in-law of a disabled man who starved to death after his benefit payments were stopped has said the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) "owes my family justice" instead of "protecting its image while people keep on dying".
Alison Turner spoke out after MPs questioned whether a promised safeguarding review ever took place after the 2018 death of her father-in-law Errol Graham, the 57-year-old who was found dead in his Nottingham flat, eight months after his employment support allowance (ESA) was ended by the DWP.
The government had pledged to carry out such a review at the request of a coroner looking into the cause of Errol's death in 2019. However, in a new work and pensions committee report released on Thursday, 15 May, MPs question if the review ever took place.
The MPs add that failure to do so likely prevented a follow-up investigation that would have looked at what lessons can be learned to prevent more tragedies like Errol's happening again.
Alison told Yahoo News she found the new claims "disgusting" and that it showed the DWP was "getting away with what they're doing".
"To lie to a coroner should be dealt with appropriately. These are people's lives," she said. "This was Errol's life. The coroner represents the deceased, the truth for those deceased. To me, [the DWP is] preventing the court and the coroner from carrying out their duties."
The report, which directly cites concerns Errol's case, says the DWP has started at least 240 internal reviews into claims their actions may have contributed to a claimant's death or harm.
It also calls for a new legal duty to be placed on the DWP to fix its 'deficient' safeguarding practices following the tragic deaths of some of its customers in recent years.
Yahoo News has asked the DWP for a response.
Errol, who was disabled and had a long history of mental illness, died in June 2018 after his out-of-work and housing benefits were stopped by welfare officials in October 2017.
At his 2019 inquest, the coroner confirmed that Errol weighed four-and-a-half stone when he died, and that the cause of death was starvation.
His body was discovered by bailiffs who broke down his door to evict him for non-payment of rent. A coroner's report said he was found with no gas or electricity supply and no food, except for two tins of fish that were four years out of date.
Errol's ESA had been cut after he failed to attend an appointment for a DWP "fit for work" test, and did not respond to two "safeguarding visits" by officials.
An inquest was carried out in 2019. Nottingham City safeguarding adults board also published an independent review of what it described as the 'shocking and disturbing' events that led to Errol's tragic death.
In that report, the board concluded that multiple failings by the DWP, Errol's GP practice and his social landlord meant that chances to save him were missed.
Turner previously described her father-in-law as "very proud man" who cut himself off from his family and friends in an attempt "to keep his mental illness to himself".
More than £50,000 of taxpayers' money was spent on lawyers to try to prevent the release of a safeguarding review after Errol died, The Guardian reported in January.
Confusion over whether department took out a safeguarding review first became apparent at Errol's inquest.
The DWP assured the coroner it would undertake a safeguarding review, which was expected to lead to a change in government policy, and would mean the government would not need to issue a Prevention of Future Deaths report.
The report, written by the coroner, identified what action should be take to prevent future deaths, with the recipient (in this case the DWP) required to respond in 56 days.
However, Jesse Nicholls, a barrister acting for Errol's family, told the work and pensions select committee of MPs that the safeguarding review never took place.
The committee said it tried to "ascertain whether DWP had conducted this safeguarding review", but they couldn't find any conclusive evidence.
After the findings came to light, his daughter-in-law Alison told Yahoo News that the government "cannot escape the fact that there is evidence to show that their department is not only deadly, but ignorant".
She told Yahoo News: "I want to be able to deal with grief, but I'm just angry all the time with it.
"I'm angry. I'm angry that Errol's not allowed the truth because the government need to protect their own interests. At the end of the day, he's human like anybody else.
While she said "there is mountains of evidence" the support the need for more robust safeguarding measures, she is doubtful anything will change.
She added: "The DWP cannot just stand there — but it will."
The work and pensions committee has been investigating whether the DWP should have a statutory duty to safeguard vulnerable claimants like Errol.
Its report recommends introducing a legal duty of care — a fundamental principle that supports and reinforces safeguarding measures.
It says that the department's 'patchwork approach' in response to serious cases of harm 'lacks coherence and direction" and, because of that, "public trust is sorely damaged".
Several deaths have been linked to the DWP from 2020-23, with the report suggesting that these figures just scratch the surface.
In the last year of statistics — covering 2022/2023 — 34 deaths of benefits claimants were linked to the DWP.
This report, which was two years in the making, was originally launched after safeguarding concerns were raised involving several high-profile deaths of claimants, including those of Errol, Philippa Day, Jodey Whiting and Kevin Gale.
Questions over the DWP's legal responsibility came to the fore when former then-work and pensions secretary Therese Coffey claimed that the DWP had no 'duty of care' to benefit claimants, adding that that duty should be left to 'the local councils, the social services, the doctors and other people'.
However, for Alison, the claim is irrational and illogical.
"The DWP owes its citizens a duty of care. This is a department that probably comes into contact with the country's most vulnerable people, more so than even the NHS does," she told Yahoo News.
"Errol would have been entitled to a police investigation if he died in a police custody. Errol would have been entitled to an investigation if he died in the NHS. All we're asking is for the same treatment.
"Why should my family not be entitled to the truth because the DWP did it? The government owe my family — and other families like mine — that at the very least."
