Shame on you Iain Duncan Smith for causing stress to this vunerable DV victim

[JamNan]

link here to story on BBC website

Long story short:
A woman known as 'A' has been raped, assaulted, harassed and stalked by an ex-partner. As part of what is called a Sanctuary Scheme, she and her son live in a three-bedroom home which has been specially adapted as a safe and secure space by the police.

Under new Housing Benefit rules, the woman and her son will only receive HB for a two-bedroom property; which means a reduction in income of 14%. Supported by Women's Aid she has challenged the decision in the High Court.

Work and Pensions Secretary Iain Duncan Smith is defending the claim, no doubt at great expense to taxpayers having unsuccessfully argued at a hearing in June that it should be dismissed.

I am astonished at the callous attitude of the government, IDS and his ministers. Surely we should be helping this vulnerable woman until she can get on her feet again and not penalize her.

Please don't start a bunfight about scrounging benefit claimants.

because those wouldn't work make such a difference

I am not a Mum to young children, in fact I'm a 57-year-old grandmother (that is a daytime childminder to two of my grandkids). Notwithstanding the former, I want to relate to you all my terrible experience of domestic violence:

I was a victim of extreme-domestic violence and (to cut a long story short) I got help off the DHSS (now the DWP)/Social Services/council landlord, etc AS I KNOW BEYOND A SHADOW OF A DOUBT I WOULDN'T BE HERE TODAY AS MY EX-HUSBAND WOULD'VE EVENTUALLY KILLED ME, apart from the monetary help and housing help (I was re-housed 70 miles from my home, it was my choice to go), etc I received: I had to have 2 years intensive psychiatric treatment after a suicide attempt. It horrifies me that at least 2 women die every week at the hands of the man that's supposed to love them and they won't get the support I got back in the 1980s.-
I am over it now, but, even to this day a key turning in the front door (from outside) still makes me shudder & I have PTSD from somethings I suffered.
Suffice to say: I fear it's only a matter of time that some woman is killed because of benefit denial/social services cuts like the recent death of an ex-soldier through benefit sanctions and all Iain Duncan Smith does is drone on about keeping families together! Tell that to my grown-up kids who are affected to this day by the violence we all suffered

Many ground floor and basement flats in London have bars on the bedroom windows, through which you could not get out. I can't believe they're all illegal.

LurkingHusband Clearly having a spare room subsidy is stupid in the case of a family that has a panic room. A bedroom should only be considered to be a bedroom if it meets building regulations for sleeping quarters. Otherwise my downstairs toilet would be considered a spare room as many people live perfectly happily without a seperate toilet and bathroom.

The benefit of a panic room is largely psychological.

Unless the woman sleeps in the panic room, baths in it and basically lives upstairs in the house, never goes into the garden, never has a job, never shops or goes on holiday it's window of providing safety is very much diminished but the police probably won't have told her this.

In many situations the requirements needed for the safe room make it essential for it to be a not in normal use room.

Some woman will need to have use if it for the rest of their lives.

And no we are not even close to locking up all the perpetrators. We are rather more close to giving suspended sentences and relationship skills courses to violent abusers like the following example (the one I have consent to share) of a safe room user.

Her husband held her hostage in her house for 24 hours tried burning it down with her and her children in it. Cut the phone lines to the house smashed up her mobile beat her whilst she was being held -result he got a conviction for criminal damage and assault, £130 fine paid to BT for criminal damage 2 year suspended sentence and a 6 week course run by probation . It was the one physically violent incident in the relationship.

She has moved 24 times all the way around the country and twice outside of the UK every single time through no fault of her own he has located her. Several judges have deamed her to be at very long term risk and as a result she has lifetime protection orders.

During his suspended sentence he breached the protection order many times every single one went to court every single one he was punished by being fined,he was also able to obtain a licence to run a pub he has never spent more than a night in a cell.

She has an additional room safe room because of some of the things that have been put in there to protect her it cannot be used as a normal bedroom.

She will not be deamed to 'not need' her safe room for many many years if ever.

Her landlord has reclassified her house as a 2 bed from a 3 so she is not penalised financially. Very few are willing to do this.

The DHF is a joke. It is time limited and often done on a first come first served basis it is also not enough to support those with genuine need most DV related applications will fail.what makes it even worse is many LA's are issuing DHF payments to applicants who are legally exempt from the additional room disregard because they think it is what they have to do rather than just apply the exemption.

ReallyTired

you're preaching to the choir

I think the woman will have worked out for herself that the sanctuary room won't help while she's out, Wild...

She may also have figured out how to walk from the kitchen to the sanctuary room when the bashing at the reinforced front door or the adapted, secured, windows starts.

Gosh, she might even do that at night, if the rooms not her main bedroom. What with the window alarms and entry security the sanctuary team have fitted.

(And that's why it's expensive, btw, it's an adjusted house, not just a room.)

And its called the "under occupancy charge"

Not bedroom tax and not removing the spare room subsidy

NeedsAsockamnesty

You could call it Fried Green Onions for all I care. If it looks like a duck etc ...

WildBillfemale Wed 19-Nov-14 12:22:22
The benefit of a panic room is largely psychological.

Please back this up with evidence WildBillfemale

My abuser is free to do it again. He raped me, strangled me, kicked and punched our dcs. He tried to get me sectioned. He left me with a huge bruise covering half my arm when I was holding our newborn son. The strangling occurred when the same baby was asleep less than three feet away.

He is free. He is not in prison. The investigation has been left open but 'at the current time we (the police) are not going to be persuing this through the legal system'.

So not all monsters are behind bars.

It looks like a under occupancy charge and it quacks like a under occupancy charge and surprise surprise it is called a under occupancy charge.

Spare room subsidy is what people who want you to think that there ever actually was something called a spare room subsidy to remove. Call it

Bedroom tax is what people who want to claim its a tax call it.

But it is a charge so tbh the bed room tax users are a damn sight closer than anything else is

'The benefits are largely psychological' you say wildbill

Maybe, maybe not. But even if the only benefit was psychological I wouldn't begrudge any woman £11 a week to feel safer after suffering the appalling psychological damage inflicted by an abusive partner.

Imagine what kind of mind it takes to justify charging someone for "under occupation" of a safe house?

That is pretty close to my personal definition of evil.

"Oh, I see you live in permanent fear of you life. But the thing is, we really need there to be more people at risk from this man or else we're going to have to charge you for the extra rooms."

Kafkaesque doesn't cover it.

I was just watching PM questions on this case and it came up that at least 100 other women are in a similar predicament. This is incredibly worrying and explains why discretionary payments are not a good thing if so many are in need of a limited pot of money. Reminds me of the Poor Laws prior to the welfare state when anyone in need was at the mercy of the benevolence of those in a position to help. We chose to move away from this type of assistance for very good reasons, do we really want to go back to this?

It is also worrying that some men are not being removed from society even when it is known they pose a risk. I am getting very tired of violence against women and the responsibility to avoid it placed squarely on the shoulders of women.

The benefit of a panic room is largely psychological.

Yeah because the DV projects just love wasting money for psychological reasons do t they?

It is in fact a secure room which gives the occupants a further level of security within their home. From my experience it isn't often the agencies do this as it is expensive and moving someone elsewhere is often a better and cheaper option. However, for some there may be good reasons why they cannot move such as family support/disability etc.

This woman is being penalised for needing protection.

And IDS doesn't give a shit.

And I won't apologise for thinking anyone who cannot see this is lacking in sensitivity and empathy. How much tax is IDS spending defending this? Far more than would be saved if he just accepted this was a special case and dropped it. But then his cuts are not about saving the taxpayer money, they are about ideological principles and people like the lady in this case are worth nothing to him.

I am not ever voting Tory again but my fear and certainty is that the heartless bastards will get in again next year. God he,lp those who are most vulnerable when they do. Hateful fuckers the lot of them.

misskelly totally agree am sick sick sick of victims of abuse having to carry the can instead of abusers, sick of police failures, sick of the pathetic state of relationships education in schools, sick of the cuts to services to the most vulnerable and sick of women lining up to put the boot into other women without thinking 'there but for the grace of god go I'

gratefulhead I too am petrified they will win in May, possibly with more seats, and will feel they have the green light to dismantle the entire welfare state while fuelling this vile, empathy free attitude we now have in this country where nothing is valued except a few ££

misskelly, I too watched PMQs today. When Cameron was asked why a panic room was being treated as a spare room, he replied that if the occupant needed the extra room she could apply to her council for a discretionary payment.

This was an utterly absurd answer. If it were that simple, surely the DWP would have pointed her towards the discretionary payment system - rather than taking a vulnerable woman to court.

"discretionary" means "may not get". Presumably some razor-witted MP immediately challenged Cameron on this, so that the public aren't left with the incorrect impression that everything is now OK ?

And how about that MP that immediately asked Cameron what people who are denied a discretionary payment are supposed to do ... oh hang on, I imagined that

Like I said, the discretionary payment scheme is a fig leaf.

It provides cover for politicians without actually paying out to people in need.

According to the BBC article Miliband has already pointed out to Cameron that many victims of domestic violence are not getting the discretionary payment.

There are 300 households in a similar situation 80% of which are not getting the discretionary payment.

Maybe it's a cunning Tory plan to kill off their female vote for good.

PrincessF
I've not had time yet to see PM's question time yet. Thanks for that info though.

IDS is actually using taxpayers' money in defending 'A's' action in the High Court.

Twinklestein yes, those pesky suffragettes eh!

The Tories are the party of pure crystallised victim blaming! Abetted by most of the media.

Agree that the 'discretionary' payment scheme is a fig leaf that's cited as if it's a 'safety net'.