Lorry driver loses fifth of wages over unproven debt

Barry Hawker, a lorry driver from Littlehampton, says he is losing a fifth of his wages every month to repay a benefit debt the government has never proven he actually owes.

Hawker, who lives in West Sussex with his wife Gemma, says the Department for Work and Pensions began deducting 20% of his salary, at times as much as £700 a month, to recover an alleged overpayment of disability benefit made between 2005 and 2011. The trouble, he says, is that he never received that money in the first place. When he has asked which bank account it was supposedly paid into, the department has refused to say.

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Gemma said the couple would gladly settle the bill if officials could show them the evidence. “It is not about the money. It is the principle. They cannot prove he even received it,” she said. From the beginning, she explained, all they wanted was to genuinely understand whether they were liable for the amount being claimed, what evidence supported it, and whether a mutual solution could be reached. “But we have never had that from them. This is not a situation we’ve put ourselves in. It’s one that’s arisen and we’re not clear on how, when or why.”

The squeeze at home is already tight. Gemma said that once rent and bills are covered, the automatic deductions could leave Barry with as little as £300 a month to live on. Barry has a rare and chronic autoimmune condition called systemic sclerosis. He claims disability living allowance while continuing to work as a lorry driver, which is legally permitted. The benefit, his wife explained, helps pay for travel to his medical appointments and for essential medical items not provided on the NHS, and bridges the gap when his health prevents him from working.

Getting answers, Gemma said, has been a “very stressful and frustrating battle”, and the couple have been treated “atrociously”. She described the system as very hard to navigate and really impersonal, with the department offering only standardised responses to their questions. “It feels like they’re probably hoping… most people give up,” she added.

When asked about the case, the DWP said: “When recovering an overpayment, we carefully receive available records and evidence.” A spokesperson added: “We take concerns raised by our customers seriously and will contact him [Barry] to provide him with more information.”

Meanwhile, debt charity StepChange has seen similar patterns before. Peter Tutton, speaking to the BBC, said it was quite common for the government to recover overpaid benefits “out of nowhere”. One problem, he explained, is that repayments are often taken directly from earnings, which carries an inherent risk of pushing households into financial hardship or debt. While he accepted the department needs to recover money genuinely owed, he argued people should receive proper notice and repayment terms need to be manageable. “They need to make sure things are fair,” he said.

For the Hawkers, the dispute remains unresolved. More than a decade after the alleged overpayment, they still do not know how, when or why the debt arose, and they are still waiting for the proof they asked for.