DWP helped cause mental distress of poverty-stricken benefit claimant who took her own life, says coroner

Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) failings contributed to the mental distress of a disabled woman who took her own life after being left with less than three pounds in her bank accounts, a coroner has concluded.

An inquest in Stockport has found that DWP’s actions were one of the factors that contributed to a decline in the mental health of 31-year-old Krissi Hunt before her suicide on 23 November 2023.

By the time she died, she was underweight, had almost no food left in her flat, and was not due to be paid for another five days.

Her family have now warned the Labour government that its planned cuts of billions of pounds to spending on disability benefits will cause further such tragedies by placing similar intense levels of pressure on disabled claimants with significant levels of mental ill-health. 

And they point to tragic echoes of other deaths linked to DWP’s actions over the last 15 years*, including those of David Clapson, Mark Wood, Philippa Day, Errol Graham and Sophia Yuferev.

The inquest had originally been due to take place last June and last just three hours, but Krissi’s family asked the coroner to take a detailed look at the actions of DWP, other local agencies and her workplace, and it was twice adjourned until a three-day inquest finally took place last week.

The inquest in Greater Manchester had heard that Krissi, who had a diagnosis of bipolar disorder, was claiming both personal independence payment (PIP) and employment and support allowance (ESA), and had not worked for 13 years.

But she started working less than 15 hours a week as a fundraiser under DWP’s permitted work system, which allows those on ESA to work for up to 16 hours and earn a maximum of £167 a week while still receiving their out-of-work disability benefits.

On 26 June 2023, she informed the ESA team she had started work and would not work more than 16 hours a week.

The next day, HM Revenue and Customs told DWP’s anti-fraud team she had started a job.

The anti-fraud team assumed she had not informed DWP because her call to the ESA team had not been recorded properly. 

The ESA team then sent her a letter about alleged fraud and a permitted work form to complete within 14 working days.

The following month, the DWP anti-fraud team analysed information which mistakenly showed she had earned above the permitted work limit.

She was fined £50 for failing to inform DWP she had started work, and she was told she had now been overpaid £149.

Krissi was repeatedly told by the DWP that she needed to repay the ESA overpayment and the £50 fine.

DWP then told her local council that her ESA had been stopped for one week.

The council wrongly concluded that her ESA had stopped entirely, and told her she owed £828 in housing benefit.

DWP’s errors and her mounting debts led to her mental health spiralling downwards, and she repeatedly tried to resolve the dispute and clear her debts.

She made repeated calls to DWP to try to resolve the errors, without success.

In her final call to DWP, which a relative has listened to, and which was discussed during the inquest, Krissi was clearly in distress, but DWP agreed that its telephone agent failed to check on her welfare.  

By now, Krissi had taken a full-time, high-pressure job at a care home, working 12-hour shifts with two hours’ travel a day, which her family believe may have been an attempt to clear her debts.

Her family say the physical demands of the job – including an incident at work in which her laptop charger was stolen, leading to a work meeting the day before her death – led to her becoming increasingly unwell.

She took her own life less than two months after starting the job.

Her family and friends described her as a bright, vivacious young woman who cared deeply about other people and who aspired to be a nurse.

Her family’s own circumstances, including her step-father’s wife, Jenny Barrow, having long Covid, meant they had not been able to keep as close an eye on Krissi’s life as they had wanted to.

At the inquest, DWP accepted that the £50 charge should never have been issued and the overpayment should have been rescinded because her average income over a five-week period was within the rules, even without the error in calculating how much she had earned.

The coroner, Andrew Bridgman, found that DWP’s failures contributed to the decline in Krissi’s mental health, along with other factors, including harassment from a neighbour and the strain of beginning full-time work with an intense shift pattern.

But the coroner said it was not possible to say whether these factors contributed to her decision to take her own life.

He concluded that she died by suicide.

The inquest had also heard that Krissi’s PIP claim was being reviewed, and that she had twice been unable to attend assessments, on 16 and 22 November, because of her new job.

She had been told that unless she attended a reassessment, her PIP would be stopped.

Although the coroner did not include this as one of the factors that impacted her mental health, her family believed it had done so.

DWP did not rescind the fine and the overpayment until July 2024, eight months after Krissi’s death, and only after her family had requested a mandatory reconsideration and review into the department’s actions. 

Jenny Barrow and her husband fought after her death for the coroner to ensure a detailed examination of the agencies that the family believed had failed her.

Jenny said Krissi’s death showed again the “significant concerns regarding the safeguarding of people in receipt of DWP benefits, especially those with poor mental ill-health”.

Now she is desperate to warn MPs that countless more disabled people are likely to die if the government pushes ahead with its cuts to PIP and universal credit described in its Pathways to Work green paper (see separate story).

And she wants DWP to change its procedures so that it takes more account of inquest findings that do not lead to prevention of future deaths reports, as such reports are so rare.

She said: “We must ensure that the DWP has effective safeguards for all people in receipt of benefits. 

“It’s very concerning thinking about what might happen to so many disabled people with the current proposed cuts to benefits and known harms to people’s health and well-being, including suicidal ideation.”

She said the family “cannot comprehend the safeguarding failings across many of the agencies involved with Krissi brought to light over the three days of the inquest”.

And she praised the work of their solicitors, Leigh Day, and Greater Manchester Law Centre, which introduced the family to their barrister, Ciara Bartlam, from Garden Court North Chambers.

Colin Barrow, Krissi’s stepfather, said: “Knowing Krissi, she would have felt the pressures of the DWP reported debts. 

“Even with the positive aspects of her new job she would have been in a panic. 

“She would have thought her flat would be in jeopardy. But she continued with her new job and looking positive. 

“All the stresses she experienced close to her death would have been too much for her and she would have put on a brave face that she wanted people to see, especially at work.”

Leanne Devine, a partner at Leigh Day, said: “The desperately sad deterioration in Krissi’s mental health was contributed to by failings at the Department for Work and Pensions. 

“No family should have to hear that DWP failings contributed to a spiral in their loved one’s mental health, yet in our legal work we hear this kind of narrative again and again. 

“For that reason, it is incredibly disappointing that Krissi’s family were not granted legal aid for legal representation at her inquest, despite the fact that all of the other parties including the DWP were legally represented and funded by the public purse.”

She said it was only through the tenacity of Krissi’s family that the events leading to her death were fully investigated.

The inquest ruling comes as the Commons work and pensions committee is set to publish a report next week on how DWP safeguards “vulnerable” claimants.

DWP said it was reviewing the approach it takes to safeguarding.

A DWP spokesperson said: “Our sincerest condolences are with Ms Hunt’s family and friends in this tragic case.

“Our aim is always to provide the best possible support to those who need it, ensuring they can access the appropriate services.”

*The Department: How a Violent Government Bureaucracy Killed Hundreds and Hid the Evidence, DNS editor John Pring’s book on the years of deaths linked to DWP, is published by Pluto Press

**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

Credit for this article goes to John Pring with the Disability News Service