‘Like going back in time’: Windrush victim told to send selfies to DWP or lose universal credit

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A Windrush scandal victim has been told she will be stripped of her welfare benefits unless she sends the government photographs of herself to prove she lives in the UK.

Glenda Caesar, 61, one of thousands of Commonwealth nationals who were wrongly labelled as illegal immigrants for years, has said she feels let down after the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) questioned whether she was British, and proceeded to suspend her universal credit payments.

The Dominican national, who came to Britain legally as a three-month-old in 1961, received a phone call from a member of staff at the DWP on Tuesday, who asked whether she was a UK resident and told her she must prove this.

“She was saying, ’You need to produce this, you need to produce that,’ and that if not they were going to suspend my claim. I only get £136 a month and it’s the only form of income I’ve got,” Ms Caesar told The Independent.

“She was adamant. I said, ‘Type my name into Google and you’ll see everything about me.’”

The same day, a notification appeared on Ms Caesar’s universal credit online journal stating that her payment had “been stopped”, with a comment stating: “This is because we think you are no longer eligible for universal credit.”

A message appeared on the “to-do list” section of the journal instructing her to upload “a clear picture of you holding your passport open at the photo page next to your face” and “a clear picture of you standing outside your address with the door to the property open and the keys in the door”.

It demanded that she do this within 14 days in order to begin receiving universal credit again.

Ms Caesar, who is a high-profile Windrush victim, struggled for years after losing her job and being denied benefits because she couldn’t prove her immigration status.

She has since received compensation from the Home Office, but she said the majority of the money had been spent on paying off the thousands of pounds she owed for unpaid rent and council tax.

Ms Caesar is now planning to send the photographs to the DWP, but said she believed it was “ridiculous” and “an invasion of privacy”.

“I’m so angry. It feels as if I’m going back in time and being told. ‘You can’t do this now.’ I feel let down. I went through all of this for 10 years and to be put back there again is devastating,” she said.

“I don’t feel as if I belong in England. This is the last straw. It’s making me hate the UK and I shouldn’t have to hate the UK. I was raised here and have been here all my life.”

The DWP said the phone call was prompted by Ms Caesar going on holiday to Dominica in July 2021. It said some universal credit claims made during the pandemic were reviewed if the claim was “made from abroad or the account was subsequently maintained from outside of the UK”.

“As part of the review process, we contact the claimant and ask them to verify that they are in the UK. We offer the option of attending the job centre or sending in photographic evidence. In this case Ms Caesar opted to send photographic evidence,” a spokeperson said.

Ms Caesar’s complaint comes after the DWP came under fire when it emerged that benefit claimants were having their support stopped and being ordered to pay back thousands of pounds after failing to provide specific forms of ID evidence, such as a selfie or a photo of themselves outside their front door.

The DWP has said this is part of a process to “go back and check” that claimants who did not undergo the face-to-face verification checks due to job centres temporarily closing because of Covid have not “abused” the system.

But Charity Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG) has highlighted cases where people have struggled to fulfil certain ID checks, due to legitimate reasons such as having technical problems or being unable to take a selfie because they don’t have a smartphone.

A DWP spokesperson said: “Some people sadly choose to defraud the benefits system so in order to protect the public purse, we temporarily stop a claim while it is under review, then immediately reinstate it once the claim is verified.

“Ms Caesar hasn’t missed any benefit payments as part of this review and isn’t due another until 3 June. Once we receive the requested documents we will immediately reinstate the claim.

“We understand why Ms Caesar was distressed by our call and it is unfortunate that because of the fraudulent actions of an unscrupulous few during the pandemic, we have to take such action.”