this Scandal is of epic proportions and I mean Epic Proportions coming up on British thought leaders no Wilcox talks about the child maintenance service parents are not criminals but they're being treated like criminals no says this government body uses extreme powers to force parents to pay billions that they don't owe how on Earth was that legislation passed through Parliament I have no idea whatsoever that goes against all um mechanisms of natural Justice that goes against the right to a fair trial and it violates all human rights no shares evidence that over a thousand victims of this Scandal commit suicide every year the system isn't working and thousands of paying parents are taking their own lives it's a very very serious problem and nobody's talking about it [Music] welcome to British thought leaders I'm Lee Hall today I'm sitting down with no Wilcox from reform UK nol thanks for joining us my pleasure Lee so could you give us a brief intro to what the CMS is how many people use it and how you got involved in campaigning on this okay so the child maintenance service um took over from its predecessor which was the child support agency which a lot of people might know um you know going back to sort of like 1993 2012 and the child support agency was introduced to sort out Financial Arrangements between uh parents once they separated or whatever might have happened you know between them so how did you get involved how did I get involved so subsequently I had a daughter that I was unable to see through the family courts for no viable legal reason whatsoever um the child maintenance service got involved in my life and I quickly established that they were plucking figures out of thin air so I me the issue you're talking about is not whether parents should support their children or not but the the CSA inflated these figures between 1993 and 2011 they then passed on this debt to the CMS they became the CMS the CMS have these really massive enforcement powers to get parents to pay what somewhat fictitious debts I mean what kind of figures are we talking so it was established in 2011 by n Shanahan who was the director of the child maintenance service that the debt of 3.8 billion was uncollectible because all of all of the figures that had gone into the ARA's balance were somewhat inflated by about 300% and what they did they used the inflation technique as a lever to force a paying parent to come to them with whatever information that they wanted so once that parent had come forward and started making the payments or uh they were in in some form of uh dialogue with the child maintenance service or the CSA if they were paying £100 a week and they'd been estimated at300 a week that £200 a week would acre in that area's balance which then built that debt up to 3798 billion so I mean this isn't a theory we have a clip here of no Shanahan talking at a department of work and pension Select Committee in 2011 think that the work that the the department has done C has done identifies that going back many years um we used to create something called an interim maintenance uh Arrangement essentially it was a number that was brought up to say to the non-resident parent this is how much you'll have to pay actually used as a bit of a leave them when they wouldn't give us their pay and information which we have to ask for so actually it was inflated it seems to be inflated by about 300% so when they didn't pay all those numbers have gone into the areas so the truth is actually those areas are somewhat inflated because of the tools that were used you know up to 18 years ago so what we're looking at here is they inflated the figures by 300% to basically scare parents into paying can you just talk us through that again because it's it's so hard to believe exactly it's you know it's really difficult to believe I mean when you look at from a a criminal aspect to inflate something is actually a criminal offense and what deeply troubles me in this oral hearing is the flippant approach by everybody around the table you know nobody kind of looks over their glasses or whatever it might be and say sorry can I just confirm that this is what you were doing you know to to do that from my understanding of the law it it's a fraudulent act would you agree that that's that is a fraudulent act I can't see any reason for doing that hmrc do something along those lines but then they take the figure back down don't they yeah they yeah once you've uh once you've contacted hmrc and you've agreed your financial arrangements with them then they make the necessary uh Corrections so the DWP tried to deploy that tactic but they didn't make the corrections and that is a serious serious problem and your viewers might be sort of thinking to themselves yeah but that happened in 2011 why is that relevant today because of the testimonies and the cases that I've researched and certainly a lot of people that have reached out to me what they're claiming is and what they're alleging against the DWP that is that they're paying everything that they've been asked to pay but then all of a sudden they'll wake up in the morning they'll go on their portal and they will have thousands of pounds of these arar that have been added to their accounts with absolutely no explanation of how they've got there with no breakdown the CMS will say we we don't need to give you a breakdown so if youve got the Aras on your account you have to pay it and if you don't pay it then we're going to use our enforcement powers to bully you to pay it incredible there's also another method of looking at more historical earnings rather than more recent earnings wasn't that yeah so yeah um the law states that they have to use the most recent tax year and that is in uh case law where that was where a judge had clearly stated in the upper tier tribunals so I mean that's you know quite quite an established Court you know where um a lead judge has said that you have to use the correct data and he's actually gone through a process where the CMS should be able to obtain what your live data is but many parents who contact me show sheer frustration at the fact that the CMS just refused point blank to listen to the evidence that they're putting forwards to them and these are all parents that want to pay but they want to pay the correct amount and it's very easy for the child maintenance service and and the old CSA to to pump this sound bite out there of their beat dads so and they it's easy for them make to make false claims that billions of pounds are owed because they're simply not these are all fabricated debts and they use a very complex technique or system to inflate incomes now and that's with current income checks which is a policy that the DWP which is supposed to be there to validate incomes but yet again what a lot of pent uh paying parents are coming forwards and saying is that if they get a commission one month or they get a dividend or a bonus the CMS will home in on that month so they'll cherry pick the month as opposed to the actual tax year right so it's much higher yeah so it'll be much much higher and then what they'll do is they will forecast their earnings for the next 12 months which creates the AAS but also what they're doing is is they're backdating it to the last tax year which gives the areas on that account so in essence it looks like to me what they're doing is they're doing the same thing they're just doing it differently the National Audit office expressed serious concerns about the CMS historical financial statements we got another clip here from another working pension Select Committee in 2022 are you satisfied that the large number of people saying that there is a fictitious debt are are mistaken that actually if the child M service is pursuing a debt then it's almost certainly accurate no we're not satisfied with that you know we wouldn't necessarily use the word fictitious however it is it does mean that people are being pursued for debts that there is not the evidence to substantiate that they owe yeah so Joshua Redway who was the director of the child maintenance service you know he he clearly states in in in this video that he is very concerned regarding the fact that these calculations are just not correct and yes he says we wouldn't use the word fictitious but we would certainly say that parents are being pursued for debt where there's no evidence to substantiate that they owe that's really serious that is such a serious statement and yet again nobody in this Select Committee is taking control of this situation and I can't understand understand why I'm absolutely Bamboozled that in all of these oral hearings the work and pension select committees that we're establishing that this is what is going on which is a serious is issue and it's a very very serious problem that's gone on now systematically for the last three decades and it's just not been addressed and it's getting worse and worse and worse so if someone doesn't pay the the child maintenance the C CMS issue this liability order which tells the court to collect the money but as we know they've inflated the amounts the parents have to pay so if a parent receives a request a liability order to pay this massive amount they can challenge it in a court right that's absolutely not correct so when you look at the child support act section 33 subsection 4 of that act it precludes the justices and the magistrates or the sheriff from checking the calculations of the child maintenance service really that's incredible absolutely incredible how on Earth was that legislation passed through Parliament I have no idea whatsoever that goes against all um mechanisms of natural Justice that goes against the right to a fair trial and it violates all human rights so we know that these figures are being inflated it's discussed on government record by no Shanahan um but a judge can't even Challenge in a court the figures that come through on the liability order no judges keep saying that we've got no jurisdiction we have no jurisdiction over Aras and that they can't check the calculations of the CMS the only thing that the judge can establish is that you are the father of that child or you're the mother of that child because yes this predominantly affects fathers but also women are are massively affected by this as well so how powerful is the CMS what enforcement powers does it have I mean Draconian enforcement is an understatement they have extreme enforcement Powers the likes that I cannot understand how this is completely unregulated and that they're completely unaccountable to anybody so the sort of enforcement powers that we're talking about is that they can go direct to your bank and they can take any amount of money out of your bank account yes which is called a lump sums uh deductions deductions order they can go to your employer and they can take up to 40% of your salary but it has been known that they're taking over 40% of your salary as well but the law states that they're not allowed to take more than 40% but I have seen a lot of cases where the 40% is being deducted and the thing that keeps being highlighted to me is that employers and paying parents are are just absolutely petrified of the child maintenance service with this bullying approach I mean it's these letters that come through um the letter box whether it's it's got the crown seal on it and it it's just the nature and and and how they're written and just the bullying approach and employers don't want all these problems so they're just going to pay them whatever they want you know when they're being threatened with £10,000 fines that if they don't pay that amount of M money to the DWP employeers are just not going to argue with that who takes on the state at the end of the day no matter what country you live in when the state comes after you if you're a criminal it's an unpleasant experience extremely unpleasant because right then your Liberties and your freedoms are being removed from you and rightfully so if you have committed a crime but parents are not criminals but they're being treated like criminals absolutely in fact criminals get a right to a fair trial terrorists get a right to a fair trial but if you're a pay parent you have absolutely no mechanism to challenge what the state is saying that you owe there are also some enforcement powers to do with passports and driving licenses yes so uh the CMS can put a charging order on your property and force the sale of that property and at no time in that complexed procedure can anybody check these calculations so even when it get gets to the county court because the liability order has already been served when it gets to the county court a judge still can't check those calculations but they're going to force a sale of your property they can remove driving licenses they can uh remove your passport so you're almost becoming a non-citizen you have no house no passport no driving license for a debt that you don't owe and also you will be sent to prison where they yes do do you know of people who've been I know I know of people that have been sent to prison I've got the statistics and I also know which is still a prison sentence uh a number of paying parents that have had um nonone custodial sentences as well but it's still a sentence incredible people being sent to prism when we know that these figures have been inflated is admitted on record I do know of cases where people have been sent to prison where the child is not theirs really yeah there is cases of that and I know a current case at the moment um where a certain gentleman doesn't even have a child but he's had money removed via a Deo a deductions earning order and he's an oil rigger so he was unaware that these payments were being taken out of his salary and he doesn't even have a child he doesn't know who this who the woman is he's checked the birth certificate and on the birth certificate it categorically States who the mother and the father are of this child that is allegedly his he has sent that birth certificate because he went in and and got it via public records he sent that certificate in into the DWP and the DWP said that's a fraudulent document we're not accepting it these are horrific and tragic cases of what is going on it's absolutely tragic what is going on the former government Minister an Wham said the evidence of the cms's incompetence is overwhelming do you think this is just Mass incompetence do you think there's more to it than that there's negligence and then there what I perceive to be deliberate and I do believe that they're completely incompetent in everything that they do every system that they use I I I do believe that they're totally incompetent but then also I do believe that there's deliberate acts because how can you pull a debt that's never existed into a new system and start collecting money on that on on on on that debt that that that's not negligence how can that be negligent that surely is deliberate we talked about these historical debts do you know of any examples of the CMS inflating the figures in more recent times oh absolutely absolutely I mean I'm on I'm on a lot of uh Facebook groups I get uh invited to a lot of Facebook groups and all the time you see current paying parents that are paying everything that they've been asked and then all of a sudden they've got a Riz on their account and the and and and a big complaint that I keep seeing from the receiving parent is that they're not getting the money and I know of a lot of cases where evidence is being provided to me that money's been collected but has not been passed on yeah to the receiving parent now a Freedom of Information was done and how many instances do you think from what you know about the CMS how many instances do you think where this has happened where the money was collected but not passed on to the receiving parent 100 24 a half thousand cases really 245,000 cases in the last year that was assessed by the Nao now in that year what happened I was reading the Nao reports because I scrutinized them and it said that a receipt was found but had not been paid on to the receiving parent the Nao flagged this with the CMS and the CMS conducted an investigation and the CMS had stated that they had um found other instances of where this had happened other instances so the Freedom of Information was done and now we've quickly established that it was 24 a half thousand cases so you keep hearing a lot of the time the receiving parent who's constantly kicking off off saying I'm not getting no money I'm not getting no money and they seem to be hating their partner which is predominantly men and you can see a lot of poison because they're not but the money has been collected and the money is been paid it's not being passed on so the whole system is an absolute disgrace and how they can keep putting these sound bites out there that they're lifting 160,000 children out of poverty and I'm yet to see the data for that um and that there's 10,000 parents who just don't pay I'd love to see the data for that how can you not pay when they've got those enforcement Powers unless you don't exist there's no way of them not collecting that money the government recently did a consultation asking the public what they thought about the child maintenance enforcement um I think the respons was published on the 12th of February what did the consultation find so the bill was pushed through and what what has happened is that they have the the government now has said that they're going to reduce the enforcement process of liability orders from 6 months down to 6 weeks and the appeals process that I've seen in there is that once that assessment has been made you've got seven days to appeal it that's not long at all seven days seven days so I mean what happens if you're on holiday or what happens if you're working away from home or whatever it or whatever it might be and it's from the date that letter is sent so if it's lost in the post so if it's lost in the post You've Lost Your Right to appeal and then they can process their own liability orders it's an administrative order so now not that there was any checks and balances anyway they can completely bypass the whole Judicial System it's mindboggling isn't it that this is being allowed to happen I mean and the United Kingdom promotes itself around the world that we're the Cornerstone of democracy really do you think the CMS is fixable no no no it's not I mean the culture of the DWP the culture of the child maintenance service this issue has gone on for three decades I don't believe that it is and this is a failing entity this has failed since his Inception as the child support agency it's predecessor the CH uh the child maintenance service it constantly fails but it's costing the British taxpayer roughly between 3 to 400 million pounds a year to operate this department you know the way I see it you can introduce a hundred enforcement powers and you can bring in as much but if people don't have the money to pay what you're asking them to pay and you're driving paying parents into poverty how is that beneficial to the child because amongst all of this whilst all this inner fighting and this uh this poison that I see that's going on and this hatred amongst all of this who is ultimately suffering the children because Mom and Dad are so busy fighting over money mom and dad are so busy fighting with the system so just in those two areas there that run parallel to each other how on Earth is that beneficial to the child I don't understand there's got to be a simpler much more affordable easier way of doing this and nobody's saying that any parents should avoid paying their financial responsibilities nobody's saying that but it's got to be a much fairer way and we' got to bring parents together unite together if that's through mediation or whatever you know I I I really don't know but you know you got to bring people together and not drive them apart and that's what the CMS is doing because it incentivized is the paying parent sorry the the the receiving parent to get as much as they can out of the paying parent by refusing contct by refusing Knights they get more money so that incentivizes what we're seeing currently through the family courts and the child maintenance service it's a huge widespread issue a massive massive issue that's just not being addressed and what we're seeing is social Devastation social breakdown in our societies at the moment because of the whole way that the family unit is treated here in the United Kingdom there's no support mechanisms it once you get involved with Child Protection Services the family courts child maintenance service it's all mudslinging so when the CMS come knocking for these um amounts that have been inflated and the parent can't pay them what what kind of reaction do we get from the parents well sheer frustration for one um and because of the financial pressures it's been reported and it's been alleged that there's thousands of suicides that are attributed to the child maintenance service and we know this because in the oral hearings in 2022 Debbie Abrahams who was an MP she confed fronted Arling suden who was the director of the child maintenance service at the time and Debbie was cross-examining her as to what happens when a pain parent commits suicide they hold an internal review that is not published anywhere surely that's marking your own homework exactly something as important as this even if this even if the system worked perfectly and everything was being conformed to all the legislation and you and if pay parents were still committing suicide there would have to be an investigation into that but the system isn't working and thousands of paying parents are taking their own lives it's a very very serious problem and nobody's talking about it and everyone who Who's involved in these select committees and these oral hearings they're so flippant and this is what I can't understand everybody's response is just completely flippant and why because it seems to me that the establishment and certainly the government have pumped this narrative out there that fathers just don't want to pay for their children and that they're woman beaters it's wrong it's just completely wrong Brian Hudson did some some Freedom of Information requests and found that the mortality rate for these paying parents is over 14 times the national average as a massive figure and do you have any examples of of parents who have taken their lives because of this uh there's a very high profile case of Gavin Briggs and his father Ian Briggs I'm in quite close contact with and I mean this man's life has been absolutely destroyed by what's happened by the death of his son um and I have spoken about this that Gavin's income was inflated to 765,000 and he was given nearly 17,000 of AAR just shy of 17,000 of fictitious arear and Gavin numerous times contacted the CMS and they refused to adjust the calculations and Gavin had got himself into such a dark place that he bought a disposable barbecue Q um he lit it in his car drove off into a field and sat there and poisoned himself so he he couldn't afford to pay to the degree that he just thought there was no other they were going to leave him with 150 a month to live on really they yeah 150 pound a month there's another case of Johnny O'Neal and he was on a Deo the amount of times that this man had contacted the CMS begging them and pleading with them and the family begging these people to adjust the calculations and look at his case and they refused to do it and then unfortunately Johnny took his own life as well and left his sister and his mother with their lives completely turned upside down now and these are just you know these are one of many and the Hudson report that you're referring to yes he has he has concluded that paining parents with a re are 14 times more likely to be dead and he's also concluded that it's 1,3 paying parents annually have taken their lives as well well that's a massive figure it's a humongous figure and he has challenged a lot of people and nobody has challenged his study that he's done he's a very clever man Brian very very clever man and how he's put that study together and I do believe that mathematicians and professors have actually looked at the report and they've actually come to the same conclusions with the figures that he's produced that it is fair and it is accurate so why is this not being addressed if the Hudson report is correct and the mortality rate is of 1,3 paying parents taking their lives annually that why is why is it something not been done about it I know many paying parents who've contacted the national fraud line they've contacted the police they've C contacted the National Crime agency they've contacted the National Audit office and they keep saying it's a civil matter I can't understand how it's a civil matter if this fraudulent debt has been carried over into the child maintenance service they're Distributing that debt onto paying parents accounts and as a result of that they're taking their own lives why is that not being investigated by the authorities by the appropriate authorities why is it not being suspended pending an independent investigation I I I just can't work these things out it's not they're not pushing back and saying oh it's it's a real Deb they're admitting that it's a fictitious and still it carries on and it carries on and it's being allowed to carry on and it's been supported to carry on so gingerbread and who is the uh receiving parents charity um they they have been pushing for higher enforcement Powers constantly pushing for more enforcement Powers they want paying parents to really being start uh sent to prison sihor Bailey Who was the P who campaigned for more enforcement powers and got this bill pushed through they've all been present at these hearings why are they pushing this narrative I I just can't understand I'm Bamboozled that somebody you know regardless of of of what side of the fence that you sit on but somebody's not actually come out and said whoa we need to stop this and there needs to be an investigation to find out exactly what is going on so we mentioned uh an Wham there also sir Alan Campbell a senior MP calling for a full public inquiry into this do you think this is going to blow up like the post office Scandal did I think the post office scandal in relation to this is the warmup this Scandal is of epic proportions and I mean Epic Proportions this is not just a computer system that is getting things wrong this is not a computer system and I'm not saying that anything that happened to these posties was uh in any way uh not as important as what is going on because I do believe that there was suicides with the post office Scandal and the fact that the state was coming after people for fictitious debts so we know it goes on and we know that there's no recourse for people to deal with this and exactly the same is happen happening but on a much larger scale and the thing is with the Hudson report when covid uh when when the lockdowns came obviously the enforcement action had dropped by 24% so did the mortality rate right so there's got to be a direct connection there hasn't there and that was from the office of national statistics what do you hope to see happen next I believe that there needs to be an independent inquiry and I would like to see the immediate suspension of the child maintenance service and if there has been any criminal conduct or misconduct in a public office then I believe that people need to be sent to prison no will Co thanks for joining us my pleasure [Music] oh
