7/7’s worst injured survivor who lost both legs & eye faces losing job after his benefit support was CUT

THE most injured victim of London’s 7/7 bombings faces losing his job and home – after his access to work support was cut.

Against all the odds Dan Biddle, who lost both legs, his left eye and spleen in the suicide explosion at Edgware Road Station in 2005, has been able to go to work.

7/7 survivor Dan Biddle is facing losing his jobOlivia West

Getty Images – GettyEmergency service workers at Edgware Road Station after a suicide bomber detonated on a London Underground train in 2005[/caption]

But he can only run his business which helps companies attract, employ, retain and progress disabled candidates, because he was receiving 40 hours a week support through a combination of physical and mental health support from the government grant, Access to Work.

For the last four years the Department of Work and Pensions has allowed Dan to employ his devoted wife, Gem, to do 40 hours a week as his support worker, due to the fact she knows all the debilitating triggers that come form Complex PTSD.

She helps Dan, who is wheelchair bound, attend to appointments, manage the symptoms of C-PTSD and manage the daily issues that arise from having such server physical and mental health issue and most important is there when he suffers the effects of complex PTSD caused by the bombing that almost claimed his life 20 years ago putting him in hospital for nearly 12 months.

But this year civil servants have cut his Access to Work by more than half – to just 13 hours a week – meaning the couple have lost three quarters of their household income as a result.

And Dan reveals he is not the only disabled worker to face swingeing cuts.

A campaign, backed by Britain’s Got Talent winner Lost Voice Guy who also receives Access to Work payments to help with his comedy career, is fighting to reverse the cuts.

And MPs are angry that a 7/7 victim who wants to work is being hit.

Tory MP Joe Robertson says: “Our nation has just remembered the tragic events of 7/7 with its 20-year anniversary. Now we learn that the Labour government are cutting support for those living with the devastating injuries and don’t have the time to meet with the victims.

“Labour lost control of their welfare spending when they lost the battle against their backbenchers last month. We all know that spiralling welfare costs need to come down, but this cannot be off the backs of people who genuinely need support.”

London bombings victim Dan, 46, from South Wales, told The Sun: “Because of my physical disability I need help with carrying stuff and getting in and out of buildings.

“I need some support with driving and the crux of it is the emotional support I get due to the triggers that set off my PTSD which occur multiple times a day a leave me feeling distressed and highly anxious”

“I pretty much work seven days a week because it’s the one thing that I can try and use to try and keep the mental health a little bit under control.

“But I can only do that with the support I get from Gem, a major part of her role around running my business is helping manage the impact that 7/7 has had on my mental health. I suffer from the affects of the trauma of the day 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so Gem’s input is crucial to allow me to work.

“The disabilities minister basically admitted that the cost of disability benefit is spiralling out of control. But this is almost like a witch hunt.

“I’ve got to have my claim reassessed. That can take anywhere up to 100 days. So, I’m going to lose my business. I’m going to be out of full-time work.

“Without my Access to Work, I could be made homeless.

“So now I’m going to be a bigger drain on society because I’m going to need benefits and housing. I’m going to need all these different things.”

On the night that Dan learnt that his ATW hours had been slashed an ambulance had to be called because he thought he was having a heart attack.

He says: “I had pains in my chest, numbness in my arm, two massive incisional hernias that stuck out. It was the stress of it all.”

Dan is angry that his benefits to help him work are being cut while the Government is spending over £5 million a day on housing and looking after illegal migrants.

He says: “The country is spending all this money on migrants who don’t contribute to society.

“While disabled people who face countless challenges but who are trying to show what can be achieved are having their ability to work taken away.

“When stories like this break, it furthers the anger about the migrant situation.

“Because you see all that money being ploughed into the hotels and the phones and the food and all the things like that.

“And then the government goes ‘oh, we’re going to cut back on Access to Work, we’re going to cut back on the disability benefit.

“Yet we’re funding people who arrive illegally, come here with nothing and get everything.

“And those that are trying to build a life and build a business and work, they’re getting it all stripped back.

“They’re going to force people out of work, which is totally counterintuitive to what the Labour government said they were going to do.

“What benefit is society going to get from all these people just sitting at home doing nothing?”

Almost 62,000 people in the UK received Access to Work assistance last year.

Earlier this year disabilities minister Sir Stephen Timms hinted that big changes were coming to AtW.

According to campaign group the Access to Work Collective when payments that have been made for years now come up for renewal they are being treated as new applications and are being cut.

Comedian Lee Ridley, who as Lost Voice Guy won Britain’s Got Talent in 2018, suffers from cerebral palsy and cannot speak.

He receives Access to Work but, as yet. his payments are not under threat.

Lee says: “What’s happening to people like Dan Biddle is absolutely disgraceful.

“Dan is doing exactly what we’re always told we should do – he’s contributing to society, running a business, helping other disabled people get into work.

“And the government’s response is to slash his funding so severely that he might lose his business and his home.

“On top of this, the government keeps trying to justify cuts to PIP by saying that Access to Work is there to get people into employment.

“It’s complete nonsense! Both systems are failing badly. You can’t cut one vital support system and point to another broken system as the solution.

“It isn’t our fault that we need a bit more money than non-disabled people to survive and work.

“I’m not going to get better magically just because my benefits or ATW support have been cut. None of us are.

“The government has a responsibility here. They can’t just champion our successes and ignore us when we need help. Now is not the time to cut benefits and support and put lives at risk.

“If anything, people like Dan prove that disabled people can contribute an awful lot to society – but only when we’re given the proper support to do so. Take that support away, and you lose everything.”

Dan has lodged an appeal against his cut and even before his renewal was due he asked to meet Liz Kendall, Work and Pensions Secretary but received a ‘condescending letter’ back.

He says: “Under a Tory government, I met most of the Department of Work and Pensions ministers from Ian Duncan Smith onwards. And they made the time to talk to me, to listen to me, to discuss what was going on.

“But to be told by Liz Kendall that she’s unavailable due to diary commitments, I find that disgraceful.”

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