Recommendation to Prosecute Letter DWP

[Duquette]

Hi

I was interviewed by the DWP in September 2016 regarding undeclared income (eBay) and received an HB & CTB overpayment notification letter in December 2016 in the sum of £25k ish.

 

This overpayment was immediately appealed and after unnecessary delay my first appeal hearing date was in September 2017.

My appeal was then adjourned and I am awaiting a further hearing date.

I received a DWP Recommendation to Prosecute letter in March 2017 and have not heard anything since so coming up for 9 months now.

 

Could anyone please advise me as to how long I could potentially wait for charges to be laid

as I am finding the not knowing highly distressing!

 

Is it possible to get any information as to how my case is progressing directly from CPS?

 

Could it be my case has been returned to the DWP investigators pending the outcome of my appeal?

 

Thank you in advance for any advice or thoughts.

[dx100uk]

why don't you pop up on the DWP website and fill in the free sar there.

 

that way you'll get everything they hold on your

might expose some holes too

[Duquette]

Thank you dx100uk.

 

I made a SAR to my Local Authority last December which was immensely helpful.

Didn't occur to me to make one to DWP as this matter doesn't concern DWP administered benefits.

 

My LA handed the investigation they began over to SFIS (DWP).

 

Bizarrely, as SFIS Investigate all benefits now ,

I have had no contact in relation to these allegations regarding my Working Tax & Child Tax Credits claims.

[unclebulgaria67]

I should imagine that if you have an ongoing investigation by an authority that can prosecute such matters, that they are allowed not to release some information under the Data Protection Act, so not sure DWP/SFIS will deal with an SAR.

 

I would have thought that if they issued a letter saying they intended to prosecute, you would have legal right, other than SAR to see their evidence. You might not be able to make such a request until you receive a Court Summons. Then there will be a disclosure requirement covered by different law to Data Protection, for them to release all information.

 

If you have a live appeal in progress that has been adjourned, they will know about this. Until your appeal has reached a conclusion and they find against you, then I can't think that anyone would be in a position to take you to court. If the appeal process is looking at all relevant information, then there should not be anything that you don't know about. If you have provided all information about your ebay trading accurately and nobody investigating could find that you gave false information to the LA, then what additional info would SFIS have found out? Is there any other relevant financial information that you failed to disclose, that they have found out about ?

 

Concentrate on your appeal if that relates to every aspect.

[tomtom256]

You are correct, a SAR would not help in this instance, as the DWP do not have to release any information that forms part of an ongoing criminal investigation.

 

I would call the person named on the CI7 as they will be able to check for you if the case has been laid or returned.

 

I do know that cases from last year are in the process of being laid at court as CPS have had a huge backlog of cases from then.

[Duquette]

Thank you unclebulgaria67. I have been completely transparent with the DWP AND LA from my IUC until now. The Local Authority have offered no evidence at all to the Tribunal to support their position that I was 'gainfully self employed' selling on eBay other than their opinion that my eBay activity was more than someone just selling their unwanted belongings.

 

The LA have offered the tribunal no evidence to support their opinion and I do not understand how the DWP could recommend prosecution on a handful of incomplete bank statements that end at February 2015 and some print offs showing my eBay listings selling clearly personal items.

 

I have provided the tribunal with a 10 page expert report produced by a tax expert for the charity TAXAID (who have been invaluable!) giving their opinion that my activity did not amount to trade.

 

I realise above anything the importance of getting the appeal dealt with first as the overpayment will be one of the main building blocks of the trial and £25k is serious business!

 

The LA had not even produced a schedule of overpayments for the tribunal and that was the reason for the adjournment as they were directed to do so. They have now sent me this schedule which due to a number of significant and obvious errors has increased the overpayment by £6k to £31k!

 

I have found the ineptitude of the LA throughout this investigation and tribunal process utterly astonishing but stranger things have happened and there seems to be no second guessing which way the judge will decide as I guess he is predisposed to agree with the LA that any income derived from eBay should be used towards rent even though the HB REGS 2006 don't.

 

My understanding of the regulations is as follows:-

 

According to THE HB REGULATIONS 2006

Personal possessions are disregarded capital

 

Schedule 6

Capital to be disregarded

 

12. Any personal possessions except those which have been acquired by the claimant with the intention of reducing his capital in order to secure entitlement to housing benefit or to increase the amount of that benefit

 

Therefore I had no obligation to declare these possessions

 

Income derived from the sale of these possessions is then treated as capital according to

 

Section 6

Income treated as capital

reg 46-(4) Except any income derived from capital disregarded under paragraphs 1, 2, 4, 8, 14 or 25 to 28 of Schedule 6, any income derived from capital shall be treated as capital but only from the date it is normally due to be credited to the claimant’s account.

 

This capital did not exceed or even come anywhere near close to the 6k threshold so I had no obligation to declare this capital

 

This income from possessions must be disregarded in the calculation of income other than earnings according to

 

SCHEDULE 5

Sums to be disregarded in the calculation of income other than earnings

 

30. Any payment of income which by virtue of regulation 46 (income treated as capital) is to be treated as capital.

 

In which case it can only be treated as capital and not earnings or other income as the Local Authority are treating it

 

Thank you tomtom256.

 

I will do this as the not knowing is the hardest part of this ordeal and whatever the outcome I just want a line drawn under the matter so I can move on.

Being in limbo indefinitely is causing me huge distress!

[ericsbrother]

I would think the reason they havent moved this on is because someone has looked at it and pointed out the pitfalls of actually prosecuting and securing a conviction.

 

However, they wont want to drop it because they are under pressure to do something because some idiot made the headlines saying how they were going to clamp down on people getting an undeclared income from ebay, at car boot sales etc.

 

Had it myself about 4 years ago at a village market I used to attend.

 

Place raided by the revenue men and they had to go away empty handed and red faced because everyone there HAD either a registered business or declared themselves as self employed and no-one claimed benefits.

 

All I can say it try not to let it worry you as you know what is what

Edited November 23, 2017 by honeybee13
Paras

[Duquette]

Thank you for your positive reply ericsbrother. Unfortunately despite being extremely proactive in fighting these allegations the worry is all consuming.