17 September 2021

Judges reject attempt by Joy Dove, the mother of Jodey Whiting, to secure a second inquest into her daughter’s death, saying that individual mistakes, not systemic failings, led to death. 

What: Judges reject the attempt by Joy Dove, the mother of Jodey Whiting, to secure a second inquest into her daughter’s death, despite one of the judges criticising the “shocking” failures in the case. The judge says the decision to remove her employment and support allowance “should not have happened”, but she concludes that DWP’s errors “amounted to individual failings attributable to mistakes or bad judgment”, and were not “systemic or structural in nature”, and that it would be “extremely difficult for a new inquest to conclude that the Department caused Ms Whiting’s death”. The three judges unanimously reject Dove’s application for a second inquest, despite the Independent Case Examiner concluding in February 2019 that DWP failed five times to follow its own safeguarding rules in the weeks leading up to her daughter’s suicide.

Why significant: A setback in the attempt to hold DWP to account for the death of Jodey Whiting.