The GUARDIAN
Davina Ware applied for benefits to help look after husband Mike, 72, who has lived with Parkinson’s for 20 years
The pain cuts through Davina Ware’s voice as she describes her experience of carer’s allowance, the meagre weekly benefit given to those heralded by the government as Britain’s “unsung heroes”.
She feels “humiliated,” “devastated,” and “treated like a conniving thief” by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) since she received its demand, three months before her retirement, to repay nearly £4,000.
Her crime? She calculated the earnings of her part-time zero-hours council job as a monthly income, as she believed the DWP required, rather than as a four-week cycle. For this infraction she had to pay back four years’ worth of carer’s allowance. A grand total of £3,852.09.
“I was looking forward to retirement and then this – out of the blue. It’s put a shadow over my life,” she says, tearfully.