Jennyfer Spencer: Error hit hunt for a move

Published: 22 April 2010
by TOM FOOT

THE Town Hall has admitted that an “error” may have prevented it from meeting the urgent housing needs of Jennyfer Spencer, the severely disabled woman found dead in an inaccessible fifth-floor flat last month.

The New Journal has learned that an “incorrectly recorded” housing application wrongly designated her as in need of a one-bedroom instead of a two-bedroom, wheel­chair-adapted flat.

It meant the council was looking for the wrong size of flat for more than two years after she was assessed as in need of an emergency transfer.

In a letter to Ms Spencer’s solicitors in June 2007, a Town Hall official wrote: “This error may have prevented Ms Spencer bidding for properties, or being shortlisted for properties, that our occupational therapist would have been identifying.”

The letter said a review would determine whether Ms Spencer should be compensated, adding: “It is not clear from our records why this error took place, but may have happened when we switched computer systems in October 2004.”

The council insisted its error, which was not corrected until November 2006, did not affect the number of offers of wheelchair-adapted flats she received during the period. 

It said she later refused five wheelchair-adapted flats – a high figure, it argues, given the “acute shortage” of similar housing stock in Camden.

In a series of letters, Ms Spencer and her carers repeatedly complained that those offers were “at least half the size of her current accommodation” in  Waxham, Gospel Oak.

Last week, the New Journal was summoned to the Town Hall to meet the council’s head of housing, Jim Wintour, and top bosses from social services. 

Mr Wintour admitted the council was not able to meet Ms Spencer’s needs because of a lack of  suitable properties.

Ms Spencer, 46, left an unposted note in her flat urging the newsdesk to investigate her case.

Ms Spencer, known to friends as “Alex” had applied to be rehoused in a ground-floor, two-bedroom flat after a triple brain haemorrhage confined her permanently to a wheelchair in 2003.

She was found dead in her home by police on March 1, a year after social services axed her care package over concerns that she was not spending her payments correctly. 

Since the New Journal investigation began four weeks ago, disability rights campaigners have made strong calls for a public inquiry. 

But a council spokeswoman said there were “no plans” for a public inquiry, adding: “The letter was sent following an administrative error made in recording the number of rooms Ms Spencer needed. 

“As Ms Spencer had already been assessed as needing wheelchair-adapted accommodation she was not required to bid for properties.”