Mary-Rachel McCabe is a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, who specialises in access to justice and is a children’s rights campaigner. Earlier this week she took to Twitter to relate the tragic story of a real life Daniel Blake she has been representing.

Today in the county court I represented a real-life #DanielBlake. He is 51 and has depression and PTSD. He cannot use a computer. 1/13

— Mary-Rachel McCabe (@MaryRachel_McC) 12 December 2017

According to his doctor he is not fit for work. The DWP thinks otherwise though, and since moving him from ESA to #universalcredit 2/13

— Mary-Rachel McCabe (@MaryRachel_McC) 12 December 2017

He has been repeatedly sanctioned for failing his ‘Claimant commitment’ of job-searching for 35 hours per week. 3/13

— Mary-Rachel McCabe (@MaryRachel_McC) 12 December 2017

With @CitizensAdvice’s help, he
is challenging these sanctions, but the process is slow &, in the meantime, his money is stopped. 4/13

— Mary-Rachel McCabe (@MaryRachel_McC) 12 December 2017

He also wants to challenge the assessment that found him fit for work but he can’t until a ‘mandatory reconsideration’ has been issued. 5/13

— Mary-Rachel McCabe (@MaryRachel_McC) 12 December 2017

He has chased this many times, to deafening silence from the #universalcredit department.
The result of this Kafkaesque nightmare? 6/13

— Mary-Rachel McCabe (@MaryRachel_McC) 12 December 2017

My client has been living off £114.33 a month (that’s £26 a week) and has been relying on food banks. His rent arrears are now £10,000. 7/13

— Mary-Rachel McCabe (@MaryRachel_McC) 12 December 2017

So he is being evicted from his Council home. But until the #universalcredit sanctions are lifted, he cannot afford his full rent. 8/13

— Mary-Rachel McCabe (@MaryRachel_McC) 12 December 2017

Today I explained all of this to the judge and asked for more time for him to sort out his #universalcredit, before evicting him. 9/13

— Mary-Rachel McCabe (@MaryRachel_McC) 12 December 2017

Thankfully, the judge granted him more time. She was visibly shocked by what I told her & said the benefits system is ‘appalling’ 10/13

— Mary-Rachel McCabe (@MaryRachel_McC) 12 December 2017

And that she hadn’t been aware of all the problems with #universalcredit. She thanked me for drawing them to her attention. 11/13

— Mary-Rachel McCabe (@MaryRachel_McC) 12 December 2017

I am glad my client has a roof over his head this Christmas. But I am sad that he, and many others like him, 12/13

— Mary-Rachel McCabe (@MaryRachel_McC) 12 December 2017

Has been a victim of such a cruel and inhumane benefits system, and I wish I could reassure him that things will get better. 13/13

— Mary-Rachel McCabe (@MaryRachel_McC) 12 December 2017

#legalaid #accesstojustice @YLALawyers @justallianceuk @JusticeGap @LegalActionGrp @LawCentres @HackneyLawCentr

— Mary-Rachel McCabe (@MaryRachel_McC) 12 December 2017

Despite what some Conservatives have tried to insinuate, the plot of I, Daniel Blake not only rings true – it is in fact a realistic depiction of the the way the cruel DWP has chosen to victimise the most vulnerable in our society.

Under the Tories, since 2010 we have seen a systematic campaign to reduce support for benefit claimants to a level below that of simple subsistence, with consequences that are all too predictable: more than a hundred thousand unnecessary deaths, starvation, poverty, depression and numerous suicides.

And for what purpose? Tory austerity provides no actual gain to society. It doesn’t even benefit the economy, because the social problems it creates are far more costly to address than the financial cost of simply having a fair and humane benefits system.

The true purposeof austerity, of course, is to divert public money to shareholders of the small number of companies who the DWP have contracted to provide services such as fake fitness to work assessments.

We need a radical, humanist alternative to the Tory austerity that is literally killing Britain, and only a Labour government under somebody like Jeremy Corbyn can provide it.

Here are some of the best replies to Mary-Rachel McCabe’s tweets:

Only in Victorian times we at least had the workhouses. Which were awful places but at least they kept you alive.

— AJ (@eden2636) 12 December 2017

Proof yet again that the @Conservatives are wilfully making people homeless and starving vulnerable people. #ToriesOut #MayOut

— Martin Coleman (@MartinColeman3) 13 December 2017

Yeah, the Hague.

— Jonathan Reeves (@PlunderPress) 12 December 2017

Here at Newscrasher we definitely agree that the architects of the DWP’s cruel regime of benefit cuts and sanctions should be held accountable in a court of law.

Several users also told of helping people who have been put in similarly difficult circumstances by the cruel DWP:

i have been helping a young lad. Almost identical scenario. Taken off ESA, no notice. Had to wait 2 months for money.

— HwP #FBPE (@HahaHwp) 15 December 2017

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