To not understand benefits of £7k a month!

[CoastalWave]

Awful story in the paper today (apologies, Daily Mail! But I'm sure it's in others)

Beyond distressing what has happened to the children (and the dogs) and I'm delighted this pair have been jailed.

But what also stood out, was the comment that they received £7000 a month in benefits.

How?

When my DH lost his job during cover and we only had my part time wage to live on, we were told that £1k a month was absolutely fine for a family of 4 to live on and we were entitled to nothing. Zero. Nada. Out of that £1k a month was our £600 mortgage, £200 council tax, £150 gas/electric etc etc. Basically there was no bloody chance we could live on £1k a month. We lost all of our savings and we're still paying back the debt we accrued now.

How do scumbags like this even just get handed that amount of money per month? And moreover, no one is bloody checking up on them clearly. Those poor children.

link

Can someone please enlighten me as to how these even happens/is allowed? What on earth is £7k benefits made up of? Are all families with 7 kids and not working getting £7k a month because if they are I'm sacking off work and popping out a few more children.

Quite clearly £140K a year is not nearly enough benefits to live on. I understand that a family by the name of Johnson is on taxpayer funded benefits of that amount, but still has to beg Russians and Americans to fund their wallpaper.

Fantastic opportunity to engage in an MN favourite pastime- beneficiary bashing. All beneficiaries are responsible for the badness in the world, right?

oh wait, beneficiaries are people like you and me, oh and most of them are working or retired or unwell. 🤔

Here’s the thing, lobbing money at people who need support is not the answer. Money is certainly helpful to people coping other than on their income but when it comes to multiple challenges such as poverty, disability, social challenges and intergenerational abuse and trauma, a lot more than money is required.

It would appear the Johnson family, one of the countries biggest taxpayer funded benefit recipients do not have time to work because they have to be on holiday in the Carribean.

In other news the taxpayer has being paying benefits amounting to nearly £10,000 pounds a week for the last two weeks to a well known bully.

Just read the Telegraph article. Whilst the £7k in benefits is astounding, what stood out was the trauma that the children endured. Absolutely abhorrent behaviour from the parents, they should be in prison for life

I can well believe it OP as I know a person who gets £3,600 per month for her and one child. No disabilities. Big contribution to cover central London rent as that’s where she chooses to live. I don’t get the luxury of that choice because I have to pay for things myself.

I can well believe it OP as I know a person who gets £3,600 per month for her and one child.

Without disabilities there is no benefit that would pay this amount for a 1 child family. A large portion if that could be rent due to the costs of living in london but she will only be living off around £600 pm so I can't see where the £3,600 figure comes from unless her rent in £3,000 per month which even for London is excessive for a 2 bed property.

Rafael caught, you mean.

i looked out at her fb following a post up thread out of sure nosiness I admit. It’s odd and something doesn’t add up compared to what’s portrayed in article. I appreciate fb doesn’t always give a true picture but there are pics of the kids around the time of and after the incident in June 2021. The kids look happy, clean, no matted hair, there’s posts about birthday parties and birthday presents for the kids, on the face of it they look like any other family. I appreciate a child can still look well and suffer abuse but the article implies these children were starved and unwashed.

And all the evidence from medical professionals?

How exactly do you decide what money coming out of someone's account is ok to pay for karate but not for nails? Are you suggesting someone on disability can't ever have anything other than things that assist them?

Sounds like you want to punish disabled people. What a bizarre take on a situation where a number of children were severely abused.

Personally I'm more concerned about the parents behaviour than the benefits they supposedly receive

As I’ve said upthread my child gets dla and was discharged when he was 6 after asd diagnosis, so we never see medical professionals other than gp for routine illness who doesn’t contribute to the assessment. I would actually love to have medical professionals more involved and helping but the help just isn’t there it’s all been cut

Surely we have checks? In this case I guess the first should have been that the children were at school, if yes then he teachers should have noticed neglect, if not at school then SS should have checked on children.... what benefits they claimed is a side issue..... how were these children missed?

Of course, The Daily Mail has absolutely no previous form of exaggeration for incendiary effect do they?

@Persephonegoddess did you miss the last 12 years where everything has been cut except for benefits to millionaires?

See for example a group of millionaires food and drink being subsidised by the taxpayer at a much higher rate than free school meals.

I know, I was taken aback when she told me the amount. Rent was £1750 pcm and child only lives with her half the week. This was 2 years ago so maybe things were different 🤷‍♀️

What do you think the pip and esa assessments do?
I've welcomed 5 assessors over the last 6 years into my home. They've seen how I live, what my day to day life is like, checked my medications to make sure I'm taking what I say I'm prescribed and am up to date with them, they've been provided with over 100 pages of medical evidence of my multiple disabilities including a terminal diagnosis.
The notes on my last pip assessment which was in june of this year acknowledged that my health is not going to improve so my award is now ongoing. and this means that my next assessment will be in 10 years time if im still alive.
Disability benefits fraud is not common and the dwp have acknowledged that its approx 2% of all benefit fraud.

It’s a long thread and both points discussed previously.
One of the factors are the children's disabilities which are partly developmental delays from the abuse. These however enabled the levels of benefit received. The two are linked.

By the way, pip is an "in work benefit" so many people awarded it are in some type of work

Surely they were just making fraudulent
Claims?

No single family is going to be eligible for that level of financial award. They must have just been fraudulent.

This does not happen for child disability claims. I’ve never had to do anymore than fil in the form and send my supporting evidence.

@Sugarplumfairy65 I’m not saying children dla is easy to defraud btw there still needs to be supporting evidence it’s just not obtained in the same way as pip

And if a neighbour had posted on MN, they would have been told to MYOB.

@JustLyra the father has a low IQ according to reports

In regards to checks, this is for the adult disability teams and children disability team social workers to do every year
**
They are barely keeping up with the current and incoming workload, you really think they can add in seeing everyone else.