8th September 2010

Dear Professor Harrington,

I understand that you are seeking views on ways to improve the medical assessment programme for State Benefits.
It is no surprise to me at all that the National Audit Office has again refused to sign off the accounts due to fraud and incompetence but I would suggest to you that fraudulent claims are not the main problem.
The real concern is centred on the abuse of power and the deception that is permitted by the refusal to allow independent record that can challenge dubious procedures during medicals and the often false reports given on cases in order to defraud genuine claimants of their rightful level of benefits.
Sadly unless there are ways found to enable claimants to have verifiable independent records of proceedings the deception that leads to expensive and often unnecessary appeals processes will continue to allow the current fraudulent activities to profit the private companies and individuals responsible.

The Fraud Act 2006 states

1 Fraud

(1) A person is guilty of fraud if he is in breach of any of the sections listed in subsection (2) (which provide for different ways of committing the offence).
(2) The sections are—
(a) section 2 (fraud by false representation),
(b) section 3 (fraud by failing to disclose information), and
(c) section 4 (fraud by abuse of position).

2 Fraud by false representation
(1) A person is in breach of this section if he—
(a) dishonestly makes a false representation, and
(b) intends, by making the representation— Fraud Act 2006 (c. 35)
(i) to make a gain for himself or another, or
(ii) to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss.
(2) A representation is false if—
(a) it is untrue or misleading, and
(b) the person making it knows that it is, or might be, untrue or misleading.
(3) “Representation” means any representation as to fact or law, including a representation as to the state of mind of—
(a) the person making the representation, or
(b) any other person.
(4) A representation may be express or implied.
(5) For the purposes of this section a representation may be regarded as made if it (or anything implying it) is submitted in any form to any system or device designed to receive, convey or respond to communications (with or without human intervention).

3 Fraud by failing to disclose information
A person is in breach of this section if he—
(a) dishonestly fails to disclose to another person information which he is under a legal duty to disclose, and
(b) intends, by failing to disclose the information—
(i) to make a gain for himself or another, or
(ii) to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss.

4 Fraud by abuse of position
(1) A person is in breach of this section if he—
(a) occupies a position in which he is expected to safeguard, or not to act against, the financial interests of another person,
(b) dishonestly abuses that position, and
(c) intends, by means of the abuse of that position—
(i) to make a gain for himself or another, or
(ii) to cause loss to another or to expose another to a risk of loss.
(2) A person may be regarded as having abused his position even though his conduct consisted of an omission rather than an act.

"In relation to an offence under section 1 of the Fraud Act 2006 (fraud), "relevant event" includes-

(a) if the fraud involved an intention to make a gain and the gain occurred, that occurrence;

(b) if the fraud involved an intention to cause a loss or to expose another to a risk of loss and the loss occurred, that occurrence." ......

.......
"Deception" means any deception (whether deliberate or reckless) by words or conduct as to fact or as to law,
including a deception as to the present intentions of the person using the deception or any other person."

.........................

In order to achieve the suppression of the evidence of deception Tribunals have declared the recording of procedure by electronic means or by the taking of notes, even by a qualified solicitor, as Contempt of Court, even when those proceedings have taken place in a domiciliary setting. This has happened even when the claimant has repeatedly requested that deliberately false statements are removed from the record before Tribunals begin and where, despite being made aware of the fact, Tribunal papers provided by the Agency are incomplete and illegible.

The use in Appeals of those who have expressed previous opinions on cases and have biased views is dishonest.

Such actions can only be employed with intent to deceive and to achieve a pre-arranged result.

Historically Governments have recognised, through the National Insurance Contributions Scheme, the need to compensate those who are injured in the course of their work or service for the country, and those innocent children injured by vaccines used to bring about the preferred policy of "herd immunity".
Current attitudes within the Agency and Government renege on those recognised needs and guarantees.
Now all claimants are treated as if they are potential criminals - with bonus payments given to staff who are able to limit the amount of benefit paid. This was denied in writing, despite being admitted in person on more than one occasion, but government proposals now admit that the new proposed investigatory powers will pay a reward for each case removed from benefits. Such "bounty" payments will only encourage dishonesty and increase the cost of appeals.

There should be the right to copies of medical records for ALL claimants.
Currently, as a Tribunal Chairman confirmed in person, in cases such as Vaccine damage, Gulf War Syndrome, and Organophosphorus poisoning, claimants find that access to the vital medical records is denied to them. This raises further concerns as regards the deception built in to the system and the close relationships of government agencies and their staff.
This deception appears to be permitted as a means to protect other government agencies.

From the outset every claimant has to sign a document to give the Agency and others permission to access medical records etc. This means that the Agency has first sight of information that is not made available to claimants and yet the law states that the claimant must be the one to provide the supporting evidence.
How then is it possible for example for the Agency to deny supporting evidence in those medical records whilst at the same time the NHS hides the supporting evidence from the claimant in order to ensure loss of benefit?
This access is given to the Benefits Agency, the Health & Safety Executive (again part of the DWP), to Tribunals, and supposedly to all lawyers involved in any case and so, if the system was honestly run, there would be no need for appeals and the taxpayer would save considerably on costs.

Once the decision has been made to hide such information, for whatever reason, then it becomes necessary to ensure failure of claims. When claimants have good arguments against such decisions and raise them during Tribunals or Commissioner hearings it is then necessary for the perpetrators to have no record of same, and this is when inaccurate reports of proceedings can be used to undermine claims and to hide potentially damaging evidence.

At the moment I am not well enough to spend much more time on this and I have already returned to this email on several occasions over the last few days, but perhaps the best thing I can do for you is to provide a copy of information that I sent to the National Audit Office many years ago.
To my surprise the response I had from the NAO was that the information confirmed their suspicions.
Perhaps the Agency has not realised that the reason why the NAO does not sign off their accounts is not necessarily due merely to claimant fraud, but also to fraudulent activities as described under the Fraud Act 2006 by the Agency itself, which deprives claimants of their rightful benefits, and in some cases actually endangers their lives with the insistence on attending medicals at which they may suffer serious reaction.

The following information given to the NAO is no longer complete since the Member of the House of Lords referred to below insisted that the case be taken to Judicial Review so that the deception would be revealed in Court. In addition the diagnosis, which is so dishonestly denied, was once again confirmed by the GP with the assistance of a very expensive test performed by an internationally renowned expert in the USA.
Importantly legal papers released in 2007 included copies of the initial blood tests which together with those taken later confirm that poisoning was always the correct diagnosis.
All those involved who were given access to the records must have known this yet hid the truth.
Despite the claimant's best efforts legal representation was not available but there was a Judicial Review Appeal hearing in September 2007 at which evidence of the deception was provided to a High Court Judge.
Again no action was taken. The reasons for refusal were not provided until 2008 by which time it was too late to appeal.

All authorities have stated that criminal actions may well have been involved and that these are a matter for the Police.
The Police themselves identified a dozen potential criminal offences.
However the Police say that they do not have the resources and that it is not a matter for them but state on the important matter of Concealing an Offence that:-

The taxpayer suffers more even than this because the deception reported here also affects Civil Cases and evidence used therein and this leads to perversion of justice and the failure of cases which, if won, would take claimants out of the benefit system entirely AND allow the Revenue recovery of legal costs, such as legal aid, from those causing the injuries.
Recovery of this money would greatly reduce the burden of taxation but when the true dangers are admitted steps can be taken to remove those dangers and there will then be fewer individuals harmed and in need of State Benefit and support. Exposing these offences will be a win-win situation for all but the perpetrators of the crimes.

I hope and trust that the following information will be of some assistance in ending the blatant "misleading and vicious attacks on disabled claimants", and their rights, by successive governments.

Yours sincerely,

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Also included was The Hidden Cost of Deception paper supplied to the National Audit Office

Dated 08/09/2010    Updated 21/02/2016

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