A disabled man has attempted to end his life by taking poison pills at a job centre. He’s been charged with having a chemical weapon.
David Rollins decided to attempt suicide on June 23 because he said that he was facing the possibility of losing half of his ‘already stretched income’.
David Rollins consumed the drugs at the Wellington Street branch in Leicester while he was waiting on a decision about his Personal Independence Payment (PIP).
He blamed the Department for Work and Pensions and its assessment contractors, Maximus and Capita, for their tardy decision-making in an email he sent to the Disability News Service earlier that day.
He wrote: ‘I already know from the experiences of my friends where this is going, and I will not starve to death.
‘Without the encroaching sense of impending dread caused by the prospect of losing half of an already stretched income, I would not be doing this.’
Rollins said he was afraid of losing part of his Universal Credit payment in addition to being informed that he needed a work capability assessment (WCA) in addition to his PIP claim.
WCAs show which requirements a person needs to meet to keep applying for Universal Credit. These requirements may include showing up for training sessions and interviews, as well as being required to look for work for a certain amount of hours each week.
He said: ‘Without a PIP and ESA assessment either or both of which will destroy the life he would struggle to build I would not be doing this.’
Rollins maintained that his case was a ‘drop in the ocean’ and that he’d worked for ten years helping other disabled people obtain benefits. He also mentioned that many of them had been successful in appealing PIP and WCA rulings after the DEP’s assessors had ‘lied to’ them.
He further accused DWP departments of acting ‘openly in tacit agreement, underscoring and zero-ing claimants’.
He said that he and his friends ‘dreaded’ letters from the DWP because they ‘dismissed’ their symptoms of poor mental health and fibromyalgia, a chronic condition which causes widespread pain all over the body.
He claimed that despite PIP being granted by a tribunal, one of his acquaintances with cerebral palsy had got a notice from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) saying that it had been rescinded.
Rollins, who’s spent six months since his suicide attempt in jail, said he’d advised DWP on his case that he was suicidal and he shouldn’t be forced to take a WCA but received an automated response and the form anyway.
I can’t believe that this man got put in jail for trying to take his own life. It’s not like he was attempting to take someone elses life. In the meantime, nothing ever happens to those people who are crawling over our national monuments while yelling and brandishing racist slogans.
For crying out loud, the next thing will be if you fart in a built-up area you’ll be charged for releasing toxic gas. You couldn’t make this stuff up if you tried.
Although attempting suicide isn’t illegal, I suppose he wouldn’t receive the assistance he so obviously needs if he’d not been arrested. However, jail seems a little excessive, but then the police always go for easy targets.
When you get right down to it, our system is quite sick and vile. They don’t want to pay what they should and would prefer that you serve time in jail.
THE MONTHLY MOSQUITO 