I was treated like a criminal all because of a benefits mistake

‘We’re investigating your past benefits claim. Please contact us’, the letter from the DWP read.

Staring at the letter from the DWP in my hands, I felt my pulse quicken.

‘We’re investigating your past benefits claim. Please contact us’, it read.

I racked my brain for any slight thing I could have done wrong. But nothing came to mind. And even when I did call them to press for details, they could not (or would not) tell me a thing.

Waiting to hear about any investigation was terrifying and wondering if I had inadvertently done something that I could be charged with was one of the worst times in my life.

In fact, it made me wish that I’d never gone on benefits in the first place.

But then, I’d hardly had a choice, had I?

When my husband, John, was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in May 2005, we’d drained our savings. And in the years that followed his death I have barely scraped by.

Now, it felt like the system I’d looked to for help, was set on treating me like a criminal. And that has to stop.

John and I had married late in life – in May 2003 when we were 61 and 51 respectively – but it hadn’t stopped us from wanting to make the most of every moment.

We had plans to move to New Zealand, but that all came to a grinding halt when the doctors said he’d need surgery.

Sadly, during the operation, surgeons discovered that he had bowel cancer and that it had already spread to his liver making it stage 4. He was given between six weeks and three months to live.

Naturally we were devastated by the news, but we were also determined not to give up.

As I was self-employed at the time, with my own small limited company, I decided to take a break and throw myself into taking care of John. So while he began chemotherapy almost immediately, I also began looking into alternative treatments – but they did not come cheap.

I paid somewhere between £10,000 and £12,000 for non-NHS photodynamic therapy (PDT) – which was thought to kill cancer cells by using a combination of a light sensitising drug and a very bright light.

Then spent somewhere in the region of £3,000 on a range of complementary therapies including herbal remedies and techniques like tapping or psychological acupressure.

Determined to also make as many memories as we could, when he was well enough, we made two or three trips to New Zealand in the space of a year, to be with John’s daughters and grandchildren.

All of this meant we were living off our savings – and that included the £50,000 I had kept from the sale of my old home. But between rent, bills, our trips and his treatments, and me barely working, that pot emptied quickly and by May 2006 we officially had no choice but to go on benefits.

While it was far from ideal, I had great faith in the system. This is what it was built for after all – to help people like us in a time of need. Besides, I truly believed it would only be a temporary solution.

For the better part of a year we relied heavily on my credit cards to get by as well as the £650 a month we received in housing, council tax benefit and carer’s allowance.

But when John passed away in May 2007, aged 65, that all stopped.

The benefits I had become reliant upon vanished overnight because it had all been in his name. And despite believing I could return to work without issue and pay my debts after he passed, the reality was that my grief was all consuming.

I felt like I’d been pinned to the wall with a dagger through my heart.

After four attempts, I finally reached out to StepChange – a debt counselling charity – who helped me freeze the interest on my credit cards to prevent me spiralling further.

Sadly, this didn’t help ease the pressure or my distress, in fact it worsened as, despite having agreements in place, one of my credit card companies began calling me every Sunday morning at 8am to ask if I had returned to work and was I able to start repaying them.

I hadn’t gone back to working but I was entitled to a widow’s pension, council tax and housing benefit, which was enough to begin to make myself solvent again.

Determined to get back on my feet, I made the decision to move to a cheaper home with a couple of friends and sell my nearly new car, replacing it with an old banger. I also gradually returned to my job as a behavioural analyst and executive coach and received a steady income again.

And after two years of telling myself ‘everything will be fine’, I was able to come off benefits. Things seemed finally to be back in my control.

Then, after deciding to dip my toe back into the dating pool at a friend’s insistence, I became the victim of romance fraud.

‘Peter’, who claimed to be an army major, scammed me out of the £8,500 I had managed to save up to buy a better car.

Humiliated, I never told a soul about what had happened and once again tried to muddle through it on my own. I was thankful I still had loyal clients to help me.

However, one of my biggest employers then went under and I was forced to draw down my private pension early. I was now living off just £350 per month and the lump sum I had received from my pension.

And, as all bad news comes in threes, the house I’d been renting was then sold leaving me homeless once again.

With nowhere near enough money to rent a room and still live my life, I spent the next three years sofa surfing with friends – all of whom had no clue just how bad things were.

I know I could have gone back on benefits at that point, but I simply didn’t want to.

Part of me was ashamed for not handling everything better and the rest of me didn’t want to be dependent on the state again. It just felt like a huge step backwards.

Eventually I faced the fact that sleeping in a car and on sofas was no way to live and went back into the benefit system. I was once again eligible to claim both working tax credits and housing benefit, which I did, and I was lucky to find a room to rent.

I stayed there until I was 63 and only moved out again when my state pension finally kicked in. I hoped that this would be the end of my troubles for good. That I could finally rest.

Not nine months later though, I received that letter from the DWP telling me they were looking into my past benefits claim.

Apparently, they had found a financial connection between myself and someone I had not told them about. Despite my pleas to know who it was, they refused to give me that information.

I was treated awfully. It seemed like, in their mind, I was already guilty.

Eventually, it came out that all this trouble was because my mobile phone bill was still in my sister’s name.

Her phone had become mine over 15 years earlier, something easily provable and a mess that could have sorted out much sooner if I’d been given the information.

Instead, I’d been left feeling sick with worry that I would wind up in serious trouble. No follow up care nor apology was given to me either. For me that was the final straw.

My whole life I have done everything right. I’ve contributed to the system and even, when I’d worked as a magistrate, enforced the rules. And though I never intended on claiming benefits, there is no crystal ball in life. I only ever did it because I needed to.

I vowed then and there that I would never rely on benefits again.

Even now, I’m 71 and entitled to claim benefits again, but I simply won’t do it.

I’d rather scrimp and save or simply go without than go back to a system that clearly doesn’t trust the people it’s intending to help.

It shouldn’t have to be this way. I shouldn’t have to choose between shopping or getting by on what I have left all so I can keep a roof over my head. But the system is broken and the only way I can see that changing is if we, as a society, come together to build something better.

What we need is support not condemnation, from each other and from people with the power to make change. No one should be pushed into impossible situations just to survive.

Until then, it’s people like me who are paying the steepest price.

As told to Emma Rossiter

Val Mckie is passionate about turning her experiences into actions, she is supporting the Trussell Trust with their proposal to change universal credit to ensure everyone can afford the essentials.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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