4 July 2022

What: The family of Michael O’Sullivan, whose suicide in 2013 led to questions being asked in the House of Commons about links between his death and the WCA, welcome a ‘small but significant’ tribunal ruling in their continuing, nine-year battle for justice and for DWP to be held to account. The tribunal found that DWP had wrongly tried to claw back benefits from his family that Michael had been wrongly awarded in the months before he died.

Why significant: The tribunal judge was shown papers which demonstrated that DWP had made at least 61 errors in dealing with Michael O’Sullivan’s claim. His family’s painstaking investigation over the last nine years, with the support of Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer and welfare rights expert Nick Dilworth, has uncovered multiple errors by DWP, and evidence that it was failing to ensure the safety of the assessment system.