Very sad story about ex-serviceman and his wife

[hiddenhome]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2059238/Army-veteran-Mark-Mullins-wife-Helen-driven-suicide-poverty.html

Aye mjin, it's a very difficult thing to explain. I hope you didn't think I was making any judgement.

Bit off topic, but I think Michael Rosen's The Sad Book is a great book.

Completely agree with KatharineClifton - the way sickness benefits are applied for/administered is a complete disgrace. It's only going to get worse with the government trying to get 1 million claimants off sickness benefits. And don't even get me started on the disgrace that is ATOS - the people who carry out the "medical" assessments.

How many of you have seen the forms? for ESA for example? The initial form to apply is 57 pages long and then you get another form to fill in with all your medical stuff at another 22/23 pages long. And then there's DLA....

I'm a reasonably competent person and even I blanched at the prospect of filling these forms in, and in the correct way too.

RIP Mullinses

[[http://www.coventrytelegraph.net/multimedia/news/video/2011/11/08/suicide-pact-bedworth-couple-we-ve-been-let-down-92746-29739599/ Here is a link to the Coventry Telegraph website, which contains a video interview with Mr Mullins at the soup kitchen.

He confirms that the 12 year old daughter was fostered by a family member (at SS insistence) because she was being a carer to her mother. Also that Mrs Mullins' disability benefits had come through in October,after several years of wrangling and the involvement of CAB and a special advocate.

This is a very sad case, with many strands, and it does seem to merit a proper inquiry.

Well that's confusing if her benefits had come through weeks ago?!

I think having your daughter taken from you is enough to push anybody over the edge tbh.

Channel 4 News report

www.channel4.com/news/police-investigate-death-of-couple

It may be more complicated than the Daily Mail headline suggests. I hope they find out the reason.

There's a comment about this story on FB, saying there have been a lot of cuts to the advice and advocacy services in this area, and also lots of cuts to the mental health services - the commenter says "I supported many disabled parents who faced losing their children as social services appeared to prefer removal as they only had resources for 6 weeks of support to parents."

I can't say I really understand why because if they take the children, don't they have to pay for them anyway?

www.facebook.com/blacktriangle11

www.facebook.com/blacktriangle11/posts/277081672330239

Couldn't agree more with KatherineClifton

RIP Helen & Mark Mullins

that story is so sad.

IN between all the news about their poverty, though, I noticed this line:

"social services are understood to have taken her 12-year-old daughter away last year after she was considered to be incapable of looking after her"

now

if a woman is considered to be incapable of looking after her twelve year old daughter i.e the daughter she has been capable of looking after for twelve years

then you don't take the child away from her, surely?

A sane society would do everything in its power to make sure the mother was able to continue looking after her child, be that financial, emotional or practical support.

This bloody fad, this ongoing fashion, of taking kids away from mothers who "can'T cope" when what the mothers have to cope with is not taken into consideration.

If social services taking her daughter away from her last year is not related to this woman's suicide, I'll eat my cat.

I hope the people who made this decision sleep well at night. Not.

I agree with claig
(on this thread)

sakura - if you look at some of the linked articles and the video interview, you'll see that the 12 year old was acting as her mother's carer and was moved to other family members to ease the burden on her. Which left me wondering where the husband was during all this. It's one of the reasons why I think there must be more to this than meets the eye (especially when combined with his admission that after a lengthy struggle, their proper benefits had recently come through). I do hope their is a proper enquiry into this, and that the right lessons are learned.

That sort of battle for benefits can leave you very, very worn out tho, and most awards are temporary. You can find yourself going through the whole thing again 6 months later, from scratch ? the DWP don't usually keep previous submissions.

Of course we need to wait for the actual outcome of the investigation, as everyone has said.

But it's certainly not the case that, "Oh they got one award of benefits, worries over."