Disability flat ‘should have gone to Jennyfer ‘Alex’ Spencer’

Published: 29 April 2010
by TOM FOOT

A GRIEVING daughter has criticised the Camden Council’s housing department for failing to pass on her late mother’s adapted flat to one of its most severely disabled tenants.

Muriel Adrani’s dying wish was for her daughter to ensure her large two-bedroom ground-floor flat in Gospel Oak became the home someone in similar need – but instead a healthy, single tenant won the right of succession.

Ms Adrani’s daughter, who does not want to be named, said the property would have been “perfect” for Jennyfer Spencer.

Disabled Ms Spencer, 46, who was known as “Alex”, was found dead on the floor of her inaccessible, unadapted fifth-floor flat in Gospel Oak on March 1 – following a six-year battle with the Town Hall to be rehoused.

“It shows that the allocations process is not working and that adapted properties are not going to needy people,” said the daughter.

“The flat had very large rooms. The council had put a ramp at the entrance about two years ago.

“There were railings in the toilet, a special seat in the bath and raised the furniture with iron fittings. When my mum sadly passed away, I immediately informed the council. She wanted it to go to a person in need. And now I find out it is a single woman living there. It is straightforward incompetence.”

A Town Hall spokeswoman said the flat was “less suitable for Ms Spencer’s needs” than other properties they offered her, adding it had not been officially adapted for wheelchair use and the single woman had qualified for succession after meeting “strict” assessment criteria. Clare Glassman, of the disabled group Winvisible, said Camden had a history of failing to log which council flats had been adapted for wheelchair use and that disabled access properties regularly went under the housing department’s radar.

The Town Hall strenuously denies accountability for the death of Ms Spencer, known locally as Alex, arguing she refused five offers of more suitable accommodation.

Our enquiries have established she rejected the offers because she felt they were too small or not on the ground floor.

The council’s top housing boss Jim Wintour said Camden Council could not meet her basic needs because of an acute shortage of wheelchair-access ground-floor properties in Camden. 

He said: “I don’t know if we have any two-bedroom ground wheelchair flats as large as Ms Spencer’s. There are 25 people in Camden in need of this kind of property – we are letting about two out a year. The pressures are quite great.”

The New Journal revealed last week how a computer “error” in logging Ms Spencer’s housing needs disrupted her bid to be rehoused for at least than two years.

The 46-year-old was found dead after her care package was terminated by the council. An coroner’s inquest will establish the cause of death in June.

The circumstances surrounding the tragic death of a severely disabled woman – who left a letter in her home saying she had been treated “like an animal” and urging the New Journal to investigate her case after her death – has raised serious concerns about Camden Council’s legal requirement to fulfill its duty of care.

This week the chairwoman of Disability in Camden (Disc), which is funded by the council to set up care packages for its most vulnerable tenants, backed calls for a public inquiry.

Gillian Hall said: “It would be both useful and reassuring to establish that everything possible was done and that, if this was not the case, systems are put in place to ensure it never happens again.”

The council said it had “no current plans” for a public inquiry but that “lessons would be learned” from an internal review.