Shocking Case of Gran Left to Starve
Pensioner left penniless after door was fitted without letterbox
A pensioner reportedly starved to death after her local council gave her a front door with no letterbox.
Ivy Allen, 79 – who had 10 children and 30 grandchildren – is thought to have been left penniless after her benefits book and giro cheques stopped arriving.
Her emaciated body was found only when a housing official called at the one-bedroom council bungalow in Warrington, Cheshire, to check why she had not paid rent for six months.
The grandmother, who could not read or write, began having problems when her husband died in January, according to the Daily Mirror.
Care workers visited until April, but then she started to refuse help, the newspaper said.
Two months later, she was admitted to hospital suffering malnutrition but apparently discharged herself without her family being informed.
The Royal Mail returned the benefits book and cheques to the pensions office after the front door was replaced and they were unable to deliver post.
But officials there reportedly failed to alert family or social workers that Ivy had no income.
Ivy’s daughter Sandra Murphy, 42, told the Mirror: “Mum was always independent and social services were meant to be keeping an eye on her. They weren’t.
“If we’d known her benefits were cut and the care visits had stopped, we would have been round there in a flash.”
Warrington Borough Council said it had tried to put a letterbox on Ivy’s door but were not given access to carry out the work.
“People have a right to refuse help. While they are capable of making that decision, we are powerless to intervene,” a spokeswoman told the paper.
The Department of Work and Pensions is to launch an inquiry into the incident.
http://channels.aolsvc.co.uk/news/article.adp?id=20050919061409990001
Who is to blame – the council, her social workers, her family? All of them?
Flood
By: BuffPuff - 21st September 2005 at 14:25
I sort of know what you mean, laviticus. I used to do door-to-door sales and telesales. Whenever I spoke with an old (er) person, they’d keep me on the doorstep / telephone for ages. You had to move on to the next house but was sometimes difficult to break away, esp when they told you they’d not spoken to ANYONE in over a month, and all you were doing was trying to flog doulble glazing or security alarms.
V.sad.
By: laviticus - 21st September 2005 at 12:33
We as a society seem to have lost our respect for our older folk,this could be due to housing design affording more privacy to home owners ,so chatting over the fence now is not the norm.But in certain ethnic groups the aged seem to be integrated more with the family circle, you don’t here of incidents like this involving these groups.
We recently moved and while giving the car its annual wash ,the neighbour across the way came out into her front garden.After a short chat i found out that she hadn’t spoken to any one in the street for TWO MONTHS.She sees her self as a hindrance, at a sprightly 90 years old she relies on no one,so i can only assume that they fear she may become reliant on them.
can of worms duly opend 😀
im off to make sweeties now 😡
By: Snapper - 21st September 2005 at 07:26
She is of course.
By: Future Pilot - 20th September 2005 at 14:28
Hmmmmmm did she not have a phone? A very odd case indeed there.
THE POST MAN for not knocking with her mail……
THE COUNCIL for being incompetent….
THE FAMILY for not visiting….
THE NEIGHBOURS for not being neighbourly…….
SOCIETY FOR NOT GIVING A S**T….
Makes you wonder if the family actually cared about here at all?!
The neighbours? well that’s different I live a a small street where we do talk to people (mainly the next door neighbours and a couple of others who said ‘Hi’ when we moved in) but I wouldn’t notice anything like that with any other people living near-by.
It all depends on how often she went out while she was living there, How often she communicated with others who lived by her, if she never did have any contact with anyone people just forget your there.
Maybe the postman did knock? because he/she did doesn’t mean the old women opened the door…..maybe she was too frail to do anything about someone knocking at the door.
By: BuffPuff - 20th September 2005 at 14:07
Could the council not have put an external letterbox up??? I know a number of people who have, largely as an anti mischeivous night / Guy Fawkes night measure to stop d***heads putting fireworks through the door and burning the ghouse down.
By: barrythemod - 20th September 2005 at 11:30
I second that emotion.
By: mike currill - 20th September 2005 at 09:56
THE POST MAN for not knocking with her mail……
THE COUNCIL for being incompetent….
THE FAMILY for not visiting….
THE NEIGHBOURS for not being neighbourly…….
SOCIETY FOR NOT GIVING A S**T….
I couldn’t have put it better myself. What a sad story. I’d certainly be after Royal Mail the Council if that happened to my parents.
By: DME - 19th September 2005 at 21:35
May be she is to blame, but pride and her illiteracy probably took over.
as for family i assume they wont take as much time visiting the solicitors.
Sad thing is, that’s probably true.
dme
By: laviticus - 19th September 2005 at 20:36
She is to blame. If she was all there, then all she had to say was I’m a little hungry, better eat – oopps no money, better get some.
Her family could have visited, but they didn’t, they could have called to check up, so either they did not care about her (which I think) or they thought she’d be alright and capable.
dme
May be she is to blame, but pride and her illiteracy probably took over.
as for family i assume they wont take as much time visiting the solicitors.
By: DME - 19th September 2005 at 19:02
She is to blame. If she was all there, then all she had to say was I’m a little hungry, better eat – oopps no money, better get some.
Her family could have visited, but they didn’t, they could have called to check up, so either they did not care about her (which I think) or they thought she’d be alright and capable.
dme
By: Mark9 - 19th September 2005 at 18:38
THE POST MAN for not knocking with her mail……
THE COUNCIL for being incompetent….
THE FAMILY for not visiting….
THE NEIGHBOURS for not being neighbourly…….
SOCIETY FOR NOT GIVING A S**T….
Very well said 😉 Anna
By: laviticus - 19th September 2005 at 18:00
THE POST MAN for not knocking with her mail……
THE COUNCIL for being incompetent….
THE FAMILY for not visiting….
THE NEIGHBOURS for not being neighbourly…….
SOCIETY FOR NOT GIVING A S**T….
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September 19, 2005 at 4:37 pm