Scot helped by Martin Lewis receives £5,700 in DWP benefit back payments and full PIP award

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A Scot from Ayrshire, helped by Martin Lewis, has been awarded £5,700 in benefit back payments from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and received the maximum award for Personal Independence Payment (PIP).

Christopher first appeared on the Martin Lewis Money Show Live in January to share how he is living with Ehlers-Danlos syndrome - a chronic connective tissue disorder that affects his entire body - and had applied for PIP in May 2021, but was still waiting on an outcome, some nine months later, and was living off £86 per month in DWP payments.

During an hour-long cost of living crisis special, Martin shared a short film showing Christopher at home talking about what has happened since he first appeared on the show.Martin said: “He has worked since he was 16, but Christopher had to give up his job in hospitality last year because of his agonising illness.”“He first applied for PIP in May, but due to his ex-oat status it took 16 weeks before the form arrived and then there was a catalogue of other delays, including postal problems.”Speaking about being awarded £86 in financial support per pay period through Universal Credit, Christopher said he would have been “better off in prison”.He explained: “In prison I would get fed, I would get exercised, I would have a comfortable place to live with heat and warmth.“That was very much the lowest possible point and I was left absolutely terrified.”Christopher added that he contacted the show as a “last resort” out of “sheer blind panic and terror”.

Martin told viewers how he and his team contacted the DWP while Lee Healy from Income Max, a benefits specialist who had appeared in the January show, worked on clarifying the technicalities of Christopher’s case.