Telephone Appeal

Thanks Gordon

I contacted the TS and they gave me an email address to send the submission. I have just completed it (took me hours!) and sent it off, just in time.

The Appeal is in a couple of weeks time, so I will let you all know how it goes.

Thanks everyone for your support.

Just thought I’d update you all on my telephone appeal that I had today.

The Tribunal rang me almost on time. The judge introduced herself and two other members of the tribunal. It was a 4 way conference call. They also rang my witness and supporter and asked me to hang up and speak on their phone. The judge said it would be alright to use speaker phone but I was not allowed to record. They said the tribunal would be recorded and and I could apply for a copy.

The judge than ask me to confirm a few thing such as date of birth, National insurance number, post code etc.

Then suddenly my friend’s phone stopped working (battery was fully charged). I tried not panic and hoped they would back on my phone which they did. I apologised and said we did not know what happened.
The judge was very nice and said not to worry and we continued on my phone.

The Judge said that the Tribunal had had a chat while we were disconnected and had decided that to make it as fair as possible to me to adjourn the proceedings because they did not have the medical history paperwork which the DWP should have given them. Also, as I was previously on DLA high rate for both care and mobility they needed the paperwork from the DWP on that award.

The Judge said she would write to the DWP and request the DLA award and they have 28 days to send it back. She also said it was better coming from her as they would take more notice as she had the authority. She is going to tell them off for failing to include it.

Apparently the law changed a couple of year’s ago, and they can no longer request medical notes. The Judge said she would send me a letter to give to my GP and I have to send the medical history, when I get it, back to the Tribunal.

I said I originally gave a copy to the HP at the assessment and they kept it. But they have not included it in any of bundles.

The Tribunal were all in agreement that it would not be fair to make a decision without these documents and therefore adjourned the Tribunal until they received them. They could not give me a new date for the appeal until they get them and as Christmas is coming up, it will probably
be 6 or 7 weeks.

They were very sorry and said they understood how stressful it has been but they wanted to make the right decision especially as I was on high rate mobility and had been for twenty years.

I was hoping it would be over today but pleased in a way that it isn’t because I may not have won if they hadn’t realised that there was missing information.

So the waiting continues.

Although, it was very stressful, the panel were very pleasant and

Hi Gary

Thank you. It just goes to show that you have to double check all the documents the dwp send you.

The Tribunal are being very fair in asking for an adjournment in order to get the missing evidence even though I thought it would have been all over yesterday.

Will keep you all updated.

Hi everyone

Just to let you know I am still waiting for a new appeal date after the original telephone appeal was adjourned for more evidence.

It has been about 14 weeks since the first one on 23rd November 2020 and they said it would be six or seven weeks. Should I contact them? I originally applied online but logging onto the site there is no update on my appeal.

Anybody else waiting for an appeal, adjourned or otherwise?