23 March 2016
What: Scottish police receive an allegation and a dossier of evidence relating to the failure of Iain Duncan Smith and Chris Grayling to address a coroner’s concerns about the safety of the WCA, a failure which may have caused many other deaths. The complaint is lodged by disabled activist John McArdle, co-founder of the disabled people’s campaign network Black Triangle. He believes the two politicians are guilty of the Scottish criminal offence of wilful neglect of duty by a public official, because they failed to take steps to improve the WCA in 2010 after being warned by coroner Tom Osborne in his PFD report – following the death of Stephen Carré – that its flaws risked causing future deaths. The dossier highlights the deaths of Ms DE (31 December 2011), David Barr (23 August 2013) and Paul Donnachie (November, 2015), and provides evidence that all three could have been avoided if Duncan Smith and Grayling had taken the necessary action in 2010.
Why significant: This is believed to be the first serious attempt to persuade the criminal justice system to hold senior DWP figures to account for their WCA failures.