HI Saara
I am really sorry to hear of your experiences and I agree that the system is hopeless and fails everyone. Unfortunately immigration cases are also out of scope – only asylum, separated child and trafficking cases are automatically in scope of legal aid. Although there is a system for asking for ‘Exceptional Case Funding’ for any particular case, the pay is so bad that there is very little capacity in the immigration advice sector for taking such cases on.
Many people want advice on claims against state institutions in some form or other (though housing provision is largely privatised now). It has repeatedly been pointed out that better quality legislation and more professional administration of all systems would reduce legal aid costs dramatically.

The abuse that I have personally experienced, especially and very markedly so within the NHS, has been downright shocking. I am being denied treatment for a very serious condition, this refusal to provide surgery is leaving me severely disabled. As is well known by now, the complaints process within the NHS is useless to say the least as it always, without exception, results in the complaint either being ignored or, if the complainant continues to pursue the complaint, false claims of a very serious nature being made about the complainant in order to hide the corruption within the NHS. They know that the complainant is unable to defend him/herself, they know that anyone using the NHS is by definition not wealthy so they know that patients can do nothing.

Same with the social system, benefits being the most noteable one. Benefit sanctions are a daily occurrence, leaving the most vulnerable to starve and freeze. Claims for disability routinely get denied.

Social landlords refuse to carry out repairs and if tenants complain, they get abused – I have experienced such shocking abuse such as not only the landlord demanding to be let in on an almost daily basis, but then demanding that I show them the inside of my wardrobes and cupboards and, when refusing to do so, agents from the landlord just ripping doors open! Attempts to stop them resulted in false allegations of me allegedly having been “abusive and aggressive” and “growing drugs in my wardrobes” as well as threats! I have been lied to no end, tricked, psychologically manipulated. Complaints got ignored, then I got confronted with lies that I had “never made a formal complaint”, then when I disproved this claim, more false allegations against me.They know that the poor can do nothing, being unable to access justice, and that all so-called complaints procedures exist in name only.

And this fact that legal aid has been done away with (except for immigration cases) has also led to the most vulnerable members of society not only getting their basic rights denied because they cannot defend themselves, but it has also led to a shocking increase of direct abuse against the poor, the disabled or otherwise vulnerable, from those in power. Whether it’s medical staff in the NHS, benefits workers, so-called “advise lines” (that do anything but provide useful advise) – the abuse that now gets directly meted out against vulnerable people (by direct I mean personal abuse, independent of the refusal to provide basic services/medical treatment) has dramatically increased to the astonishing extent that it is now impossible for a poor person to speak to anyone in power without getting confronted with insults, threats, getting screamed at, getting lied to, getting fobbed off, getting forced to do things they physically cannot do (eg the disabled), getting physically assaulted, getting phones slammed down on them, and – worst of all – getting falsely accused of the very things that they have suffered at the hands of those in power (abuse, aggression and violence)!

Those in power know that the poor can do nothing, do not get believed or taken serious, have nobody to stand up for them and cannot turn anywhere else.

Thousands of suicides occur each year due to this harrowing abuse and I have personally experienced such an astonishing amount of said abuse that it would fill a book – and I constantly come across thousands of reports of a very similar nature (so similar in fact that it feels like déja vu to read them) from many others who are also either poor, disabled, or in any other way vulnerable.

The disadvantaged cannot expect even the most basic of human respect and indeed those in power take a very perverted pleasure in abusing those that cannot defend themselves. I have been abused while lying in an ambulance – and a complaint resulted in the ambulance crew claiming I had allegedly “attacked them and been running around screaming obscenities”. I was severely disabled and unable to walk or even just sit up! A man reported his 99 year old grandmother with a broken back having been forced to sit in a chair in hospital, when she screamed in pain, nurses claimed she had “sworn at them and been aggressive and abusive” and told the man to “make sure this would not happen again “!

If anyone thinks, well there is the Ombudsman (eg Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman, Housing Ombudsman etc) – as pointed out above, all such organizations exist in name only. When contacting the Ombudsman I also encountered shocking abuse and a total refusal to take my cases on, and I hear the same from everybody else who has had dealings with them.

The same goes for the Citizens Advise Bureau, who are staffed by extremely unwilling – and incompetent – abusive rejects that take a perverted pleasure in abusing those desperately seeking help. The CAB is in fact now being called the “poor man’s solicitor” – but try asking them for help, you will soon see that they are nothing but a front for abuse against those that cannot defend themselves. I have personally observed CAB workers keeping the phones off the hook all day so that nobody can get through and spend the day chatting to each other while claiming they are “so busy and inundated with calls”. On the rare occasion that one gets through, one gets forced to declare extremely private details, only to then get fobbed off and abused.

The reason for this shocking amount of abuse towards those that cannot defend themselves is simply due to the fact that the abusers know that the vulnerable cannot defend themselves, having no access to justice now due to the removal of legal aid for all cases except immigration. They know there is absolutely nothing that a poor person can do, being totally unable to access legal advise or bring a court case. They know that all so-called “advise lines” are scams themselves. They know that eventually even the strongest of people will crack and jump off the nearest bridge or in front of a train, unable to stand the constant and relentless abuse and inability to defend themselves.

One wonders whether legal aid was done away with for just this purpose!