A mother of five said her family was unable to shower or eat properly for days after not receiving their independent personal payment.
Sarah Brown, who lives with her partner Stephen and five children, expected the payment to be sent directly to her bank account on Wednesday morning (June 1). But he woke up and found that he had not been paid, Lancs Live reports.
He said this left them unable to recharge their gas and electricity meters over the weekend, which meant they could not shower for days. She said she wrapped her eight-month-old baby in clothes in the crib so they wouldn’t get cold overnight.
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The rest of the family went to bed fully clothed to stay warm, she said. Sarah and Stephen even went without food at times to make sure that the little food they had at home would feed their children.
Sarah, 33, has now shared her story to try to highlight the detrimental effects that not having PIP payments on time can have on families. After spending most of the day on the phone with the Department of Labor and Pensions, the mother was told that there had been confusion with her payment, that is, she had been withdrawn. And it would take five business days to fix the problem.
This meant that the family ran out of money over the four-day holiday weekend. Sarah, from Workington in Cumbia, said: “I’m in payments for personal independence and they pay me four a week and the payment had to be paid for the third. I was told they would charge me the first because of the holiday, so I would get it soon.
Sarah’s Facebook Post (Image: Lancs Live)
“I looked at my bank to see if he had definitely come in and not. I called DWP, I called four times that day and they all said different things.”
Finally, Sarah was told that the DWP had processed her payment above what was normally assigned to her, so she later recalled the cash. However, this meant that it would take five days to fix it, leaving the family stranded.
Two of Sarah’s children (Image: Lancs Live)
Sarah couldn’t even access the food bank for an emergency package because it was closed. He continued: “They said they couldn’t do anything until they settled the payment. So I said you’d be trapped with five children and an eight-month-old baby without gas or electricity. That was my shopping money and the my gas “.
Now Sarah has decided to take him to court. When Sarah spoke to CumbriaLive on Sunday (June 5), she had been without gas or electricity since Tuesday.
Sarah, Stephen and one of their children (Image: Lancs Live)
Reluctantly, Sarah appealed to Facebook to see if anyone could help – something she said left her embarrassed. She said, “It’s not my fault, it’s their fault. We were so trapped. All the food banks were closed. We haven’t bathed or showered since Tuesday.
“We put money on the counter, but that was indebted to the gas. We didn’t have food, we had bread and butter. We were finding things in the cupboard like cans to try to do something. It felt like asking.
“Making a call on Facebook was pretty embarrassing. It wasn’t all my fault and on the fourth day we all managed to take a shower this morning.”
A DWP spokesman said: “Due to a change in circumstances, the amount of Ms. Brown’s PIP payment has recently changed. To avoid overpayment, the last PIP payment was withdrawn from “We apologize for the inconvenience. Ms. Brown has now been paid in full and her monthly universal credit payment has not been affected.”
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