Disabled Woman Wins £34,000 Benefits Case

Samuel O’Flaherty

The Background to the Case

In 2019 Ramona Cerbu was crossing the road when she was hit by a car and suffered horrific debilitating injuries. She had to have countless surgeries for her knee, ribs, stomach and pelvis. The injuries have left her with severe mobility difficulties and incontinence, meaning that she was no longer able to work. She is bed bound most of her day.

Not having anywhere else to go, she stayed with her sister but this put a strain on her family. She had no one else who could support her. There were times they had to go without food, gas and electricity and they fell behind on rent payments.

Ramona commented:

“There were some days when I went hungry and times when I had no choice but to eat out of date food, like mouldy bread. I remember wearing the same t-shirt for around 3 months, because we had to prioritise the little money we had for heating, lights and food. I needed underwear and personal hygiene items, especially because of my incontinence, but I could not afford to buy them. It was humiliating and degrading. It was so difficult to survive and manage. I was ashamed for being a burden on my family. I suffered from really bad depression and tried to take my life three times.”

Ramona got help to apply for Universal Credit (‘UC’) in 2020 so that she could have money to live on, but her application was refused. The DWP told her that she did not have a right to apply for UC because she did not have a right to reside in the UK.

Before the accident Ramona had worked and looked after her sister’s children since arriving in the UK in 2018. She had pre-settled status as a EU citizen when she applied for UC.

Ramona’s friend helped her to ask for a ‘mandatory reconsideration’ of the DWP’s decision but in March 2021 the DWP insisted that their decision had been correct.

Citizens Advice helped Ramona to send an appeal of this decision to the Tribunal.

Sam O’Flaherty of Osbornes Law was then instructed by Ramona to represent her in the appeal to the Tribunal. He was able to do so by applying to the Legal Aid Agency for Exceptional Case Funding, as legal aid would not normally be available for this.

The Appeal to the Tribunal

Sam worked with barristers Matthew Ahluwalia and Desmond Rutledge of Garden Court Chambers to prepare the appeal and represent Ramona at the Tribunal.

The legal arguments were complex. The UC Regulations say that you cannot claim UC if you only have ‘pre-settled status’ in the UK. However, as a EU citizen who is lawfully in the UK Ramona still has EU rights under article 10 of the UK’s Withdrawal Agreement after Brexit. Because of this, the ‘Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union’ applied to her.

The Court of Justice of the EU previously decided in the case of CG v. Department for Communities in Northern Ireland (Case C-709/20) hat the DWP must take this in to account when deciding an application for UC from a EU citizen that has pre-settled status and is lawfully residing in the UK. This was re-affirmed by the UK’s Upper Tribunal and Court of Appeal in the case of SSWP v AT [2023] EWCA Civ 1307. The case law says that the DWP has to assess whether refusing to give UC to a person with pre-settled status would infringe on their right to human dignity under the EU Charter. If the DWP can predict that the person is at risk of having to exercise their right to live in the UK in an undignified manner without the support of UC then the state has to step in and grant them UC to prevent this from happening.

Ramona’s legal team argued that this case law applied to Ramona’s situation and that her dire circumstances meant that she should qualify for UC because her fundamental right to human dignity under the UK’s Withdrawal Agreement was otherwise being violated.

The Outcome

The Tribunal agreed with Ramona’s case. The Judge found Ramona to be credible and that her evidence was true.

Ramona had been left destitute as a result of the DWP’s refusal to give her UC, without access to any other protections, support or payments.

The Tribunal criticised the DWP for failing to assess Ramona’s individual circumstances and to consider her right to human dignity under the EU Charter. The Tribunal pointed out that Ramona’s circumstances were exceptional.

The Tribunal found that the facts were sufficiently serious that Ramona’s EU fundamental rights to human dignity and prohibition from inhuman or degrading treatment had been violated.

Ramona won the case. The Tribunal decided that she should have been granted UC when she applied in 2020.

The DWP told Osbornes that they were thinking of appealing the Tribunal’s decision but they did not go ahead with this.

After years of fighting her battle, the DWP have finally granted UC to Ramona going forwards and paid her a backdated payment of £34,405.70 to cover the whole time that she should have been receiving UC since 2020.

Ramona said:

“I would like others to know not to give up fighting for their rights, because there are lawyers like Sam who put all their heart in to their cases and who will fight alongside you, so you should never give up! Thank you to Osbornes from the bottom of heart and I thank God.”

Ramona’s story has also been covered by the Mirror.

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