Ethel Neal, a Deaf woman from South London, has been found guilty of three counts of fraud.
Three other Deaf men, Paul Neal, Stephen Dering and Russell Parke pled guilty in the same case, relating to Access to Work payments.
Four people were found not guilty in the case.
Those found not guilty were Ian Depledge, Yen Hai Lieu, and Jamie Martin, along with sign language interpreter Rosie Coomber.
A story on this case can also be read on the Court News website by clicking here.
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Steve Gibson
May 19, 2016
Nice! ‘Not guilty’ in bold! As to say many and many of us are honest, fair and law abiding.
Waving hands!
Cathy
May 19, 2016
Yes Steven, it does mean some of us are honest, fair and law abiding!! It is a shame one was not.
Vicki
May 21, 2016
Well, four were not. It’s interesting that all the wider social media focus seems to be on Ethel Neal; when there were four people guilty in the case.
Linda Richards
May 26, 2016
Agree with you Steve. It was good to see a different (and better) way of reporting the news.
John
May 19, 2016
After your previous article I’m pleased to see you have reported on this as soon as a verdict was reached. The local Deaf & interpreter community are glad that justice has prevailed as we all knew who the real culprits were. Unfortunately innocent people have had a very costly and stressful time in proving their innocence due to the fraudulent actions of others.
Linda Richards
May 20, 2016
The British Deaf News Facebook which also shared the original same article has yet to publish anything about this verdict.
Actually, come to think of it, nor have any of the people who shared the article on their Facebook pages.
ohdear
May 19, 2016
Again!!!
How many more? Next time someone moans about ATW services and the lengths it takes… blame the scammers.
David
May 20, 2016
Poor ATW services has nothing to do with scammers. Think about how exploitive and poorly administrative the ATW scheme is that people are able to take advantage of it or be made vulnerable because of it. ATW needs to be overhauled and rethought on how it can support deaf people in every aspect of where it purposely supports them. Deaf people know ATW can be the bane of their lives – there are campaigns going on and lots of individual cases where appeals against ATW decisions are being made.
ohdear
May 20, 2016
Law of cause and effect: The more the people scam the public sector, the more the government clams down by introducing tougher checks. Leading to longer processes and the appearance of worsening services.
Linda Richards
May 20, 2016
One other facet with the AtW business is that, a few years ago, the government imposed stringent budget cuts (they called them ‘savings’) across all its departments which I think was the driving force behind ‘finding solutions’ and the AtW ‘cap’ being imposed.
It’s a great shame that very simple measures to streamline the system and make fraud less easy to commit (by a very, very, few) have not been introduced.
Here are some off the top of my head and in no particular order:
1): No payments to spouses, partners or family members.
2): Direct payments to the support worker, not the Deaf/disabled person.
3): In the case of agencies, checks to authenticate their legitimacy are followed and regularly undertaken.
4): Move payments towards an online system with protected PIN numbers and cease the business of paperwork and signatures other than at the first and review stages (to ensure the applicant commits to understanding the rules of the AtW grant.)
5): Doing a decent explanation and account of what the ‘Declaration’ means in BSL. Not a translation – a proper first language explanation.
6): Conduct assessments in the first language – BSL – by people who can use BSL. Employing Deaf BSL users as AtW assessors would ensure appropriate assessments and reviews are conducted in the Deaf applicant’s first language. After all, we know what is needed, can help ensure Deaf people are enabled to do their work and avoid any misunderstandings or miscommunications.
I don’t understood why there haven’t been proactive steps towards making the system better and easier. After all, as is oft said, for every £1 paid by the AtW grant, the government gets back £1.48. That’s the best interest deal going anywhere! On many levels!
Is there an organisation interested in presenting Deaf people as legitimate honest workers and contributing to enhancing a system which has been one of the government’s best ideas ever?
Deaf fairy
May 22, 2016
Reponse to Linda Richards I agree with her suggestions that the relationship between ATW and deaf people must be improved.
It is not fair on deaf innocent people through the mud in cases or always experiences diffculties in misunderstanding and miscommunication. To carry out research about ATW system is that something must be done to make positive changes?
I am not impressed with poor journalism on British Deaf New and it is more pointing fingers at and I like to see more descriptions.
Those fraudulent cases of people were guilty that faces jail is so sad and they paid heavy prices.
Speedy Gonzales
June 13, 2016
I won’t surprise me if there are more scammers out there and hope they ALL are exploited and brought down bang to justice. Its these people who have contributed to ATW’s recent clampdown and degrading of Deaf people’s budgets. Those of you scammers should put your hands up and bow your heads in shame for causing all the misery and grief genuine Deaf people are suffering as a result.