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LETTER TO THE ICC AT THE HAGUE RE: MISTREATMENT OF UK SICK AND/OR DISABLED PEOPLE
UK Government Refuses to Accept Responsibility for Crimes Against Humanity
By Mo Stewart
INTRODUCTION:
Following the fatally flawed Work Capability Assessment (WCA) conducted by Atos Healthcare, as contracted by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), the United Kingdom (UK) Government admitted that it was wrong to reduce the welfare benefits of Mark Wood, the vulnerable disabled man who starved to death following the reduction of his benefits, in C21 UK, when weighing only 5st 8lbs. Regardless of this tragedy, the UK Conservative led Coalition Government still refuses to accept any responsibility (a).
Tom Pollard, Policy and Campaigns Manager at Mind, said:
“We were deeply saddened to hear of the death of Mark Wood.
“Unfortunately this tragic case is not an isolated incident. We hear too often how changes to benefits are negatively impacting vulnerable individuals, who struggle to navigate a complex, and increasingly punitive, system.
“We know the assessment process for those applying for Employment and Support Allowance is very stressful, and too crude to accurately assess the impact a mental health problem has on someone’s ability to work.” (a)
WELFARE REFORMS, MEDICAL TYRANNY OR CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY?
Despite the fact that the WCA was introduced by the last Labour Government in 2008, it was originally designed by previous Conservative Governments in consultation with the notorious American corporate giant now known as Unum Insurance, who were identified in 2008 by the American Association for Justice as the second most discredited insurance company in America (b).
Without
a welfare state, sick and disabled people in America are required to
use private healthcare insurance. The Government funded medical tyranny
now imposed on the welfare dependent sick and disabled people in the UK,
using the WCA, was designed in consultation with Unum Insurance to
encourage the wider general public to purchase private income protection
insurance policies, once it was made very clear via the welfare
‘reforms’ that chronically sick and disabled people could no longer rely
on the British State for adequate financial support.
Americans
often suffer when attempting to claim from the income protection
insurance policies of Unum Insurance, who use an identical disability
denial assessment model as that used by Atos Healthcare.
Due
to the similarities of the negative and damaging experiences of
claimants, the American sick and disabled people are periodically
informed about the struggle in the UK by the high calibre and relentless
work of Linda Nee, who tries to encourage unsuccessful Unum Insurance
claimants to publicly protest, as witnessed in the UK(c),
which it seems disabled Americans still don’t dare to do – such is the
perceived intimidation of Unum Insurance and the American authorities.(d)(e)(f)
The
new report by The Mental Health Welfare Commission for Scotland,
regarding a woman’s suicide after being ‘stripped of disability
benefits’, was reported by John Pring at the Disability News Service
(DNS) and by many others.(g)
Three years ago a list of distinguished academics, together with politicians and disability support groups, identified the future in a letter as published in The Guardian newspaper: ‘Welfare reform bill will punish disabled people and the poor.’(h)
Lord David Freud the architect of the bedroom tax lives in an 11 room stately home in Kent
Questions are also being asked as to why the unelected former City banker, David Freud, was ever afforded so much authority and power in the UK Government given his questionable reputation, where one commentator described Freud as:
‘…one of the key players in several of the most embarrassing and badly managed deals in investment banking history.’ (i)(j)
The recent welfare Backbench Business debate in the House of Commons (HOC)(k) was granted due to the 104,000 signatures on the War on Welfare ‘WOW Petition’ as gathered by disabled people and carers who are demanding a cumulative impact assessment of all the DWP welfare reforms.
The debate was held on 27th February 2014 where, lamentably, most Coalition Government Members of Parliament (MP) failed to attend this very important and historic debate.
Of course, Coalition MPs still played the ‘blame game’, reminding the opposition that the previous Labour Government had introduced the WCA.
However, the Coalition routinely overlook the fact that they knowingly changed the WCA into the government funded nightmare that it is today, whilst MPs such as George Hollingbury (Column 430)(k) actually claimed that the Coalition “took it forward” (Welfare Reform Act 2012) whilst disregarding the fact that a WCA face-to-face assessment with Atos Healthcare is taking over 6 months to arrange. (Column 433)(k) Hollingbury waxed lyrically about all the ‘expert’ opinion (Column 431) (k) that totally failed to expose the dangerous and limited reality of the WCA, not least due to the restricted possible answers in the tick box WCA computer questionnaire, as conducted by Atos Healthcare, that fail to offer the choice of ‘none of the above’ as an additional possible answer when the WCA questions do not refer to a particular claimant’s situation.
Hollingbury quotes Dr Litchfield’s WCA review whilst overlooking the fact that Professor Malcolm Harrington, who conducted the first three annual reviews into the WCA, when no longer responsible, appeared in a BBC Panorama documentary and confirmed that:
“…people will suffer“ (l)No government representative can answer the subsequent obvious simple question – why should chronically sick and disabled people ‘suffer’ in the UK, apart from at the whim of a tyrannical government?
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