Complaint to Torus

section 1

part

4.

written in 2022

It was obvious to me on the day that I viewed the flat that Phil Campbell had a problem with me, by the way he was speaking to, and looking at, me.

I recall several things from the viewing which were particularly upsetting, and my mum was very concerned about several things too.

Overall, she left the viewing so concerned that she phoned LMH to speak to (Gary) another staff member about these concerns. And, I left the viewing feeling as though I would be better off dead.

The viewing was in November. My suicide attempt had been in late August. I had only been out of hospital for less than two months. The first year after being discharged from hospital after a suicide attempt is apparently the most dangerous for a suicide survivor. The likelihood of another attempt is high.

What I remember –

Phil said that when I moved into the flat, my ESA would be stopped, and I would have to go without any money while I was assessed for universal credit. I’d only just been put on ESA, and not knowing whether I was going to get ESA, and how I would manage financially even if I did, was a contributing factor to my suicide attempt. In the August, I lost my job after a two year long battle to get disability support from my employer, which they didn’t want to give me, and which exacerbated my disability to the point I was no longer even capable of working. When I asked him how long this usually took, he replied that it normally took a couple of months. When Phil said this to us, he told us the reason was that all of [postcode removed] had been moved over to universal credit. I corrected Phil over the postcode as the flat isn’t in [postcode removed], it’s in [postcode removed] and requested that he double check for me that this was the case. He responded by snapping at me that [postcode removed] is still in [area removed], then tried to tell me, in a tone that suggested he thought I was stupid, that he said all of [area removed] had gone over to universal credit.

The reason I was moving was that I had found a buyer for the house I owned with my abusive ex partner, as I was having to to sell it due to not being able to afford it alone, so I was going to be homeless.

This meant that I was in band A, meaning that I could not refuse any property offered to me. It had been made it very clear to me that if I refused any property I was offered I wouldn’t be offered another (since moving in several people have tried to say this wouldn’t have been the case. I believe it would have been the case, because when we went to sign the tenancy agreement, there was a lady with a very small baby in the office, distraught because she had been in Band A, as she was homeless, and had refused what she was offered because it had severe damp and mould, and as a result had been taken off property pool. However, it is besides the point whether it was true when you informed me that I only had one offer, because you led me to believe it was true, therefore I was acting on what you, property pool, and housing options all led me to believe was true.) LMH offered me this flat. I did not bid on it. I knew nothing about the flat, or the area, prior to the viewing.

I even stated how I felt, which is that I had been put in a situation where I had to choose between either being homeless and having money, or having a home and no money.

After the viewing I broke down outside, and my mum even went back inside to request that Phill double check the information about universal credit was correct. When she came back out, she said he had seemed very annoyed, not only by her question, but because all three members of staff present where stood around chatting, and she had clearly interrupted them.

As stressful and distressing as the situation was, and would have been for anybody, it was made worse for me by my disability, and several other factors specific to my health and personal circumstances.

Thinking I was doing the responsible thing, I tried to talk this through with Phil, but now I see that was a mistake on my part, as Phil obviously dislikes mentally disabled people.

Firstly, I explained that I had just been discharged from hospital, where I had been admitted because I am mentally ill, and I was worried that I would end up back there if I was put in the situation I was being put in by having to choose between having no money or being homeless, as after my recent suicide attempt and because of my mental illnesses I wouldn’t be able to cope with the stress, so might end up being locked back up in a hospital, or worse I might actually succeed in completing suicide.

Phil just stared at me blankly, and didn’t respond.

Next, I explained my concerns that I wouldn’t have money for food. (I have nobody I could borrow money off, as my mum is only on ESA, and so she too struggles financially.)

Phil interrupted me to say that he personally would bring me food bank parcels, then asked would I like that in a voice you would use to speak to an animal.

At this point, I explained that I cannot eat several foods due to what me and doctors believed then, and still do, was due to food allergies (although it has been suggested this year, in 2022, by a nurse, that it might be an illness such as severe IBS, which is being caused or exacerbated by my severe mental illness disabilities) and that I almost died in 2014 because of these allergies, after becoming so unwell I was admitted to Fazakerley hospitals SAU because I was just hours away from my bowel rupturing. I explained these foods where in most premade food, and then I even listed them, dairy, garlic, onions, chives, leaks, shallots, asparagus (any other plant related to Lily family) (as well as aloe and weeds).

Phil replied that this was fine, as the food would be tinned food.

I informed him that if it was tinned food, he wasn’t correct, and that would actually be more of an issue, as most tinned food has either milk, garlic powder, onion powder, etc in it, but does not always list it individually, particularly the garlic powder onion powder, as they list multiple ingredients under “herbs and spices” and that I had experienced bad reactions to tinned food that did this in the past.

Phil looked at me as though I was just a fussy eater, and made a noise like he couldn’t deal with me.

I really shouldn’t have needed to go into as much detail as I did with Phil, a complete stranger, as everybody, including very young children, know that allergies can be fatal.

I shouldn’t have to go into as much detail as I am going to go into now with you to explain why Phil Campbell’s reaction to my food allergies was dangerous, but I’m going to, because you have ignored my concerns about Phil being dangerous whenever I have brought this up in the past. You’ve also tried to say several times that Phil does not belittle or play down the seriousness of peoples illnesses and disabilities. Yet, his email on the day after my viewing is evidence that he is and does.

Since I was a child I have suffered periods of very bad stomach pains and cramps, as well as vomiting if I ate certain premade foods. These came and went until I was 22, when I began getting horrific stomach cramps all the time, began to feel like had been set on fire from the inside out, and sweat constantly and excessively. I was so tired that I started falling asleep, and passing out randomly, sometimes in public, and once in the middle of the road, as in where the cars drive, while there were cars driving on it. I was constantly at the GP and walk in centres, but nobody knew what was wrong with me, or bothered to find out.

At 23 or 24, I woke up one morning with horrific pain in my throat, and no voice. I worked in a call centre, so this led to several weeks off work. After a couple of weeks back at work the same thing happened again, only much worse and for much longer, and at one point I was rushed to A&E because I couldn’t swallow, not even my own saliva so was choking, like actually choking to the point I couldn’t breathe. Due to how swollen closed my throat was, at this point I was given heavy pain and anti inflammation medication and referred to the ENT Department, where they put a camera up my nose and down my throat. My throat was incredibly “sore, inflamed, and damaged” and my vocal chords were damaged. It was eventually determined that my stomach acid was coming up into my throat so I was put on Omeprazole, which helped a little bit. I could speak, but the pain in my throat came and went, most of the time I had some level of pain in my throat.

Over the next few years, I developed painful ulcers in my mouth and on my face, which would eventually burst or need bursting because they were so big and heavy, so became large painful sores. People began commented that I smelt like new plastic.

Then one day in May 2014, I woke up feeling really very ill, so ill I didn’t want to eat or drink anything. After about 4 days I realised I hadn’t been to the toilet for a couple of days. I hadn’t noticed straight away because of how sick I felt, but now my stomach felt heavy, swollen and uncomfortable, and I felt like I really need to go to toilet but couldn’t. After a few more days of this, I called in sick to work so I could go to the GP, because I felt so bad, and I was given laxatives by the doctor, which didn’t work. On the Friday, I was in so much pain I couldn’t walk or even stand up. By the Sunday, I had to go to the walk in centre because I couldn’t move the pain was so bad. The walk in centre called me a taxi to A&E, and gave me a slip of paper. When I arrived and handed in the slip of paper, I was rushed to the surgical assessment unit, where a group of doctors swarmed on me to do a million test. Then, I was sent for an x-ray. After the x-ray I was officially admitted as an inpatient and told I wasn’t allowed to discharge myself, because my bowel was so severely impacted, and I had food in my stomach because my GP told me I needed to eat, that it was very close to rupturing, and leaving could be the difference between living and dying if it did, as they were prepared to rush me into emergency surgery if it ruptured.

After I was discharged from the hospital, I still had the impaction, but was just now on movi prep (a strong laxative they give to people preparing for bowel surgery) which I had to drink at least a litre of every day, as well as enemas. I was on this and could not work for several months, well into 2015.

My health issues were so severe during this time, and nobody could understand why, so I was tested for intolerances, coeliac disease, and even Crohn’s, all of which came back fine.

As soon as I was taken off the movi prep, I became constipated again and was put straight back on it. This cycle repeated for all of 2015. I was informed that for some reason my body was turning all my solid waste literally solid, into a clay like substance, and at one point I had so much of it inside me I had gained a stone in weight, which was literally solid waste. You can’t imagine the pain this causes.

Knowing that I needed to do something about this myself, because nobody was helping me anymore, in January 2016, I began experimenting with my diet.

The reason I began to believe that I had an allergy was that I had begun to get painful itchy rashes and my hair was falling out, and as I began discovering what foods were making me ill and cutting them out, I cut the same things out of my skin and hair products and also saw an improvement.

At this point I dropped below six stone, meaning I had the BMI of a dangerously anorexic person.

The doctors advised me not to eat these foods anymore, warned me that if I did have an allergy just because I had never gone into anaphylactic shock didn’t mean I never would. They took me off the omeprazole and sent me to a dietician, who helped me get my weight back to a healthy weight.

In short, this all means what I’ve been telling you all along. It would be irresponsible and dangerous for me to eat these foods. It would be irresponsible and dangerous for anybody to suggest I eat these foods. And, if it came down to eating these foods or starving, I would choose starving without a doubt, because the alternative would be actual torture, and potentially more life threatening.

As the words intolerance and wheat were never mentioned, it would be dangerous and irresponsible for somebody in a position of power, such as Phil Campbell, to say substitute the word allergy for intolerance, to play down the seriousness of my food related issues, in order to make it sound like I am a fussy eater or awkward, which is exactly what he did the following day, when he emailed someone (name redacted).

Was there a response to this email?

If so, why don’t I have that response?

Another reason I was concerned, which I never mention, because in comparison to starving it seems minor, was that I had worked in insurance, finance, financial services, and banking for the previous decade, since leaving university. Meaning it was all I knew, therefore all I could reasonably assume I would be able to get a job in, in the future. More than that, it was my career. It was a career that I wanted to get well and return to, and to do that I would need a perfect credit score, something I would no longer have it if I failed to pay my bills on time.

Additionally, there was something I didn’t know at the time of the viewing. Something I only found out after signing for the property. Something Phil should have not only known, but been aware would be a serious issue to a person with no money who was living in the property, which is that the property has prepayment gas and electric meters installed in it, so I would’ve had no heating in the middle of winter, no hot water in the middle of winter, and no way to heat up those tins of delicious (to me) poison-that Phil lied by saying he would personally deliver to me, as it in the email he says he would refer me to the welfare reform team to do that.

That day, after my viewing, I went home and contemplated suicide because of how Phil made me feel about the financial situation I would be in having no choice but to accept the property.

My mum went home and spoke (as previously stated) to another member of staff called Gary (who I would eventually see to sign my tenancy agreement) who took this more seriously than Phil did, and chose instead of gossiping about it to God knows who the next day via email, decided to check immediately if the information was correct, so found out within a matter of minutes that it was not correct, so I would not be forced to swap over to universal credit.

Almost 4 years on, I’m still on ESA, and haven’t swapped over to universal credit.

Whether the tenant is going to be forced to swap over to universal credit, so go without money for several months, seems like information that housing officer should know.

More importantly, it seems like information that housing officer should know for certain is correct before they give it to any potential tenant, but specifically to a tenant who has no choice but to accept the flat or be homeless, and who has just been discharged from a psychiatric hospital after their second suicide attempt.