Investigation

My wife is in receipt of DLA & ESA and is a subscriber to your excellent site and we would value your opinion on the following, I will try to be as brief as possible.

Basically we have a trouble causing neighbour who we overheard saying she was reporting us for benefit fraud as she was sure we were both on disability benefits and that I always seemed able to climb my ladders to cut the "horrible conifer edge" and that my wife had recently had a private ambulance and private paramedics to take her to hospital, (which is nonsense). She also said she had asked her friend across the road to report us too and that she had done so.

A week later I again overheard the neighbour saying she had cameras in watching us and for a week I spotted them videoing/photographing me every time I gardened or watered my plants and the second week the same happened every time I took the dog out and when I returned home with him. The neighbours operated the cameras themselves and It didn’t worry me as I don’t think benefit fraud would be interested in me as they would surely know as soon as they keyed into their computer’s that I wasn’t in receipt of any benefit. I claimed carers allowance for mt wife for 18 months up to Feb this year when I became 65, I was advised to retain my carer status as it may entitle me to additional amounts on my state pension, but it didn’t as my income from a private pension was too high for that.

My wife however is ill with worry as she is sure the neighbour will have made up stories and reported her as well, she isn’t sleeping or eating and though she has done nothing wrong she is living in constant worry that just walking a few yards to the car will be monitored/reported.

My wife came out of (NHS) hospital just before all this started and I sent a letter to DLA & ESA telling them of this and two changes to treatment. A very helpful guy from Blackpool rang me to say he had noted everything on my wife’s records and nothing made any difference to her DLA award and he gave me his direct dial number in case I had anything else he could help with in future. ESA have not replied at all.

What I would like anyone's advice on please is:- If I rang benefits and asked them if my wife is under investigation would they have to tell me, also should I ring the fraud number, general enquiries or should I go back to the man from DLA who rang me and gave me his direct dial number. I greatly appreciate any advice you can give me.

Thank you Gordon we will just have to see what happens, as I said my wife has done nothing wrong and any investigation would show this so that is on our side.

How awful for you. You have done nothing wrong, I would note down times/dates and who was present when you observe / hear of your neighbours doing anything that you feel is intrusive.

These people are bullies. You may have a case for harassment, which can be reported to the police. Harrassment is classed ( very briefly) as any behaviour that causes alarm or distress. I had to do similar with my neighbour - it was horrible and stressful - but it did stop it!
The harrassment definition can be found here:
www.cps.gov.uk/legal/s_to_u/stalking_and_harassment/#a02a

I am so sorry for your troubles, I hope things ease off for you both soon - who knows, your neighbour maybe lucky enough to have their lives blighted by illness and they too can live the life of luxury that we claimants do ! If only...........

You don't say in your post but if you live (and/or you "neighbours")live in Social Housing.

There is usually a clause in Social Housing tenancy agreements about harassment of neighbours being a breach of the tenancy agreement.

If this applies in your case , collect as much evidence as you can and complain to your/their Landlord.

bill

Thank you both for your posts and for the link, i will look at that.
We dont live in social housing, we have lived next door to this neighbour for 25 yrs and have had other problems with them, the most unbelievable thing about this is the neighbour herself gets DLA high rate mobility and she does 60 times more than my wife is able to do. They say what goes around comes around, only time will tell.
Thankfully we are downsizing and have now sold our house and hope to be moving in a month or so, my wife will hopefully feel much better when we get away from hear. We have both loved living where we do but I think the time is right now for a move.
The filming and photos have stopped now so will have to see what happens from hear but thank you for your support.