Is this the new fashion for the Department for Work and Pensions and its privately-hired assessors: pay off the families of people who have died and sweep their cases under the carpet?
Philippa Day is the second deceased benefit claimant this week whose case is being ended with a payment by one of the organisations involved in pushing her to her death.
This time, benefit assessor Capita is paying up in an out-of-court settlement after Ms Day’s family started a lawsuit. In the other case, the DWP itself paid more than £16,000 to family members of another claimant after being ordered to do so by an Independent Case Examiner (ICE).
Coroner Gordon Clows delivered a damning indictment of Capita and the DWP at the inquest into Ms Day’s death in January this year.
He said her mental illness had been “exacerbated” by the way her benefits were processed: “Were it not for this problem, it is not likely that she would have [taken the act which ended her life].”
And he said a lot more. See This Site’s previous article – here – for all the damning details.
Now Capita is paying an undisclosed amount – out of court – meaning there will be no UK court verdict against the organisation or the Department for Work and Pensions to show that they drove a vulnerable woman to her death.
Do you think that is fair? I don’t.
Nor, it seems does solicitor Merry Varney, who acted for the Day family on behalf of law firm Leigh Day.
“Until the DWP changes its attitude, people like Philippa and her family remain at risk of gross human rights violations and ‘benefit related deaths’ are just another example of preventable deaths of people with disabilities occurring without any proper investigation or scrutiny.”
Somebody needs to take a court case through to the end. Otherwise the DWP and its assessment firms will keep dodging responsibility for the thousands of deaths they are causing.
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The UK is well on-target to have more than 50,000 new Covid-19 infections per day by July 19 – when Boris Johnson insists on unlocking all lockdown restrictions and abdicating any responsibility for the consequences.
Today – July 15 – the UK recorded 48,553 new cases and 63 deaths (within 28 days of a positive test) – those are the highest levels since January 15 and March 26 respectively.
More than 1,200 scientists have signed a letter accusing the Tory government of “recklessly exposing millions to the acute and long-term impacts of mass infection”.
Branding the government’s plans “dangerous and premature”, it described Johnson’s strategy as “herd immunity by mass infection” and said that opening the country should be delayed until “everyone, including adolescents, have been offered vaccination and uptake is high”.
“A strategy that chooses mass infection in children and young people now as a way to protect the vulnerable in winter, instead of taking the time to vaccinate our young is unethical and unscientific,” the letter added.
It also said the pandemic plan risked “burdening a generation with long Covid, the long-term consequences of which are unknown”.
Lancet editor-in-chief Richard Horton has accused government Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty of “wilfully misrepresenting scientific opinion across the country”.
He said: “I found it extraordinary that the Chief Medical Officer suggested and emphasised that there was widespread agreement across the scientific community whereas in fact there is profound disagreement in the scientific community.
“He did not mention the letter… that we published, and I’m afraid I have to conclude that the Chief Medical Officer is wilfully misrepresenting scientific opinion across the country, and that is extraordinary to observe.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has announced that the city’s transport network will continue to make wearing face masks mandatory after July 19 – and cartoonists have gleefully seized on the obvious opportunity for satire:
A SAGE expert has warned that young people in particular will suffer “acute Covid injury” – damage to their lungs and kidneys that will seriously harm their future health – due to the felaxation of social distancing restrictions:
Economist Richard Murphy raises another concern – that the decision to relax face mask rules was down to Tory vanity. He points to an article in the Financial Times, to which this tweet refers:
“The message is loud and clear,” Murphy states. “The right-wing of the Tory party want to end Covid restrictions without caring for the consequences. The government knows that this is madness, but will not rely on Labour votes to retain masks. And so, to save Boris Johnson masks must go, even if (as will happen) thousand will die as a result.
“This is democide in action.”
Read it yourself via this tweet:
Thousands are going to die to keep Boris Johnson in Number 10 https://t.co/6fDBw0As0w When even Tory commentators in the FT are saying the government policy is madness, worry
It seems thousands of people are to die because Boris Johnson is scared of his backbenchers – and too proud to rely on support from Keir Starmer – that he has enjoyed throughout the Covid-19 crisis.
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‘Covid Boris’: this satirical image was made when Johnson caught the virus in April 2020. He didn’t get Long Covid – and you can bet that he
According to the BBC’s Panorama, 33,000 children are suffering with Long Covid. Didn’t the government tell us children didn’t get Covid-19?
Wow. 33,000 children sentenced to lose an undetermined length of their life because the government they didn’t even elect is incompetent – or, worse, intended to harm them.
And some of you, reading this, will argue that it doesn’t even exist. It is this kind of ignorance that gives Boris Johnson the space to inflict the damage.
In fact, it does exist. It does harm people continually over a period of months and years. There is no established treatment for it because it is a new disease and the causes of the symptoms it produces are not known.
And thanks to more than 10 years of Tory defunding – because they want to privatise the NHS – the health service does not have the capacity to research Long Covid, let alone treat it.
According to Lucy Adams, in the programme, many thousands of people are likely to be off work for years, with a huge knock-on impact on the UK’s society, economy and culture.
Why does Boris Johnson want that?
Why has he decided to remove social distancing restrictions just as infections of a new, more virulent strain of Covid-19 are increasing exponentially?
He says he wants the country to get back to normal but the decision to end restrictions now is – according to the scientists from SAGE – definitely going to put more people in hospital, give more people Long Covid, and send more people to their graves.
And Johnson knows this.
He is deliberately crippling the UK for years to come.
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Unmasking: but would new Health Secretary ‘Covid’ Javid be so keen for us all to do the same if he hadn’t had both vaccination jabs? And will he continue to protect himself until after the vaccination programme is complete – long after his planned “Freedom Day” on July 19?
More than 100 scientists have told the government that its plan to end Covid-19 restriction on July 19 makes it #DangerDay – not #FreedomDay – for the nation.
The letter states: “Immunity will be achieved by vaccination for some people but by natural infection for others (predominantly the young). We have previously pointed to the dangers of relying on immunity by natural infection
“Implicit in this decision is the acceptance that infections will surge, but that this does not matter because vaccines have “broken the link between infection and mortality”.
“The link between infection and death… has not been broken.
“And infection can still cause substantial morbidity in both acute and long-term illness.”
Read it for yourself:
Our letter in The Lancet today: why Government policy of relaxing protections while the pandemic is surging, and ignoring the soaring infections, is both reckless and immoral. Signed by over 100 scientists an practitioners including the Chair of the British Medical Association pic.twitter.com/cwRRiDEpMz
The Tories are deliberately sentencing young people in the UK to either death or serious health problems, long into the future.
If you’re a parent, are you happy that ‘Covid’ Javid is threatening your children in this way?
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How nice to see that economic expert* Simon Wren-Lewis agrees with This Site’s appraisal of the effect on the UK of Sajid Javid’s Covid-19 policy.
In brief:
Greater strain on hospitals.
More people suffering Long Covid.
Disruption of education (mitigated by the summer holidays).
He makes an excellent point that the government has thrown away the advantages of vaccination because Boris Johnson wanted to sign a trade deal with India…
… which hasn’t happened yet.
We have a race between vaccination and the Delta variant, and the government by delaying putting India on the red list gave Delta a big head start.
This provides ideal conditions for a new variant to emerge that could seriously diminish the effectiveness of a double dose of vaccine.
So Johnson has put us in danger of being sent back to Square One, while demanding that lifting the restrictions that have saved so many of our lives will be irreversible and we’ll just have to “live with Covid” from then on.
I wonder if tribal Tory voters are still happy with their choice at the 2019 general election.
Do they even know their prime minister deliberately endangered them for the sake of a few quid?
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The chickens are coming home to roost at the Department for Work and Pensions.
The families of three benefit claimants – who are said to have died because the DWP deliberately mishandled their claims – are continuing to take the department through the court system in their search for justice.
Publicity around the cases has led to a BBC investigation in which it was found that they are just three out of 150 cases in which the DWP has conducted internal investigations into its own behaviour.
Now the department is facing demands for an independent investigation into its conduct. Long overdue demands, in This Writer’s experienced opinion.
Cases where people claiming benefits died or came to serious harm have led to more than 150 government reviews since 2012, a BBC investigation found.
Internal reviews are held by the DWP when it is alleged its actions had a negative impact, or when it is named at an inquest.
Calling for an inquiry, Labour MP Debbie Abrahams said: “It needs to be taken out of the hands of the DWP.”
Ms Abrahams, who previously read out in the Commons the names of 29 people who have died, said: “There needs to be an independent inquiry investigating why these deaths are happening and the scale of the deaths needs to be properly understood.”
The DWP said it had established a new Serious Case Panel in 2019 to consider themes identified from serious cases, which included independent members.
Yeah, right. I opened Gibbons’ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire the other day. That doesn’t mean I read any of it.
Now let’s hear from Leigh Day solicitors, who represent the three families who are pushing their cases through the courts:
The families spoke to the BBC to share their stories and the legal stages of their cases.
Philippa Day who lived with a long standing mental health illness, and was diabetic, died aged 27 in October 2019, two months after she was found collapsed at home in Nottingham.
On 27 January 2021, HM Assistant Coroner for Nottinghamshire, Gordon Clow concluded that the problems Philippa had with her application for disability benefits were “the predominant… and the only acute factor” which led her to take action on 8 August 2019 that ultimately proved fatal.
Following the inquest, a letter of claim has been sent to DWP and Capita which alleges breach of human rights and negligence by the DWP and Capita arising out of the events which led to Philippa’s death and seeks compensation for the wrongs Philippa and her family suffered. DWP and Capita have three months to respond before claims may be pursued in the High Court.
Death by DWP: Jodey Whiting.
Jodey Whiting, aged 42, took her own life on 21 February 2017. She suffered severe mental health problems and had her benefits terminated a fortnight earlier for not attending a Work Capability Assessment, leaving her with no source of income.
The Attorney General granted their consent last year for an application to the High Court for a fresh inquest into her death, which the High Court will hear on 22 June 2021. Jodey’s mother seeks a fresh inquest to ensure the role played by the DWP in her daughter’s death are publicly and fully investigated.
Death by DWP: Errol Graham.
Errol Graham, was found dead aged 57 in June 2018, eight months after his benefits were stopped because of his failure to attend a fit for work assessment. When his body was found, Mr Graham weighed four-and-a-half stone.
An inquest in 2019 found that DWP and NHS staff had missed opportunities to save Graham, and the coroner concluded that “the safety net that should surround vulnerable people like Errol in our society had holes within it”.
Mr Graham’s family have submitted an application to the Court of Appeal after their judicial review challenging the lawfulness of the DWP’s safeguarding policies was unsuccessful. The family argue that the decision in 2017 to terminate his benefits was unlawful and that the DWP’s safeguarding policies and systems need to be overhauled to provide greater protection to vulnerable benefit claimants who, like Errol, suffer from mental health conditions.
The allegations against the DWP are extremely serious.
They indicate that it has been DWP policy to endanger the lives of benefit claimants.
For that reason, it seems clear to This Writer – and I expect to anybody with the slightest common sense – that the DWP should not be judging its own work with regard to these cases.
I say that for the same reason I say Boris Johnson’s Conservatives should not be conducting inquiries into whether contracts were corruptly handed to Tory cronies – or into whether Johnson himself breached the ministerial code by getting donors to pay for his Downing Street flat’s redecoration.
They are liars; they will always whitewash themselves.
We have seen evidence of such behaviour many times over the last 10 years – reported on This Site, among others.
The work of Debbie Abrahams has been exemplary in trying to get an investigation into this scandal by an organisation we can trust.
It’s true that such efforts have achieved very little, so far.
But attitudes are changing.
As more evidence has come to light, public tolerance of the DWP’s entitled attitude has eroded.
Maybe we are finally about to get some factual answers to questions we have been asking for more than a decade.
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Still here: we may get yet another wave of Covid-19 infections because so-called ‘Covidiots’ use the lifting of some lockdown restrictions as an excuse to ignore ALL of them.
The Daily Telegraph has given everybody in the UK who doesn’t like wearing a mask for their safety and that of others an excuse to campaign against it.
“Britain will pass the threshold for herd immunity on Monday, according to dynamic modelling by University College London (UCL), placing more pressure on the Government to move faster in releasing restrictions,” states the Torygraph‘s story before mercifully disappearing behind a paywall.
Herd immunity is the idea that, if enough of the population is given immunity to a disease, then it will cease to be a danger to the population as a whole.
Boris Johnson suggested it as a way of handling Covid-19 back in March 2020 – but he completely misunderstood it, saying he thought the nation should carry on as normal and people develop the immunity by catching the disease. It was only when people started dying in huge numbers that he changed his decision and locked the UK down, fearful of the public reaction if he persisted with his nonsense claims.
In fact, herd immunity relies on vaccination, and it is true that much of the UK has now taken a first injection of a Covid-19 vaccine. This Writer’s understand was that at least 80 per cent needed to have been fully vaccinated before herd immunity could be reached, though – not the 73.4 per cent claimed by the hack rag.
Is it enough to justify the claim? Hell, no!
It’s just an attempt to support the lifting of restrictions in England that is taking place today (April 12).
The idea is to convince us all that, whatever may happen, Boris Johnson and his cronies are right to follow their lockdown-lifting timetable instead of the scientific facts which – as we have already heard – suggest that another wave of Covid infections could soon hit the UK.
❌ Masks ❌ Vaccination Passports ❌ Health Certification Status requests ❌ Name and Address Details requests ❌ Installation of NHS Track and Trace App ❌ Request for QR scan with NHS Track and Trace App https://t.co/7JNHx6mQEH
— #LoveFreedom : Defend Your Inalienable Rights 🌹 (@FreeFromTyranny) April 12, 2021
Herd immunity, whether from infections or vaccines was always the way out of this. We've kept our end of the bargain. It's time to take our freedom back. #herdimmunitymonday
— Derek Winton Reform UK Scotland (@derekwinton) April 12, 2021
The vulnerable have been vaccinated. If you still want restrictions and masks, then something is dark in your heart. Let people live their lives. #HerdImunityMonday#herdimmunitymonday
“Something is dark in your heart”? That’s a really insidious thing to say – accusing people who follow the rules of an inner evil. Isn’t it?
It’s #herdimmunitymonday . It’s all over and all restrictions need lifting now. So let’s get this trending and also time to #TakeOffYourMask if you haven’t done so already 😊
Fortunately, there is also a backlash from people who want us all to #staysafe until the crisis really is over:
Looking forward to lockdown 4.0 due to the selfish twits. To everyone that’s lost a loved one due to this virus, I’m sorry people like this exist #herdimmunitymonday
Just clicked #herdimmunitymonday out of intrigue and yeah everyone is still thick as fuck then. We haven't "achieved herd immunity" Darren mate. Far from it. You should still be wearing your mask.
It's only 08.20 and I've had enough internet for today.
See ya! ✌️♥️😷
— MATT SEEDS™ – WEAR YOUR MASK (@Seeds_ONE) April 12, 2021
Reading the #herdimmunitymonday hashtag reminds me quite how stupid a country we are.
Clicked the hashtag #herdimmunitymonday to see what it's all about….correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems as if the same people who don't believe the virus is real or contagious, also believe in herd immunity? Am I missing something, or are they really that stupid?
The worst part of this is that there will come a time when vaccination really will have done its work and herd immunity – as correctly defined – will have been reached. And that’s when these morons will come out again and claim that they were right all along.
In the meantime, though, let’s remember that some of these people have been claiming that the government will find any excuse to impose new lockdowns, keep us in our homes and wearing masks – because that keeps us under control.
It seems odd that they also seem hell-bent on providing the government with the excuse it needs.
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Inquest: Philippa Day took an insulin overdose after benefit assessment provider Capita cut her benefits and demanded that she attend an assessment centre – which was impossible due to her disability.
Philippa Day believed her benefit claim would be mishandled before she made it – and she was right. A coroner found 28 “mistakes” were made before she took the insulin overdose that ended her life.
But were they mistakes or was Gordon Clow, the coroner who reported on the case, simply unable to attribute “malign” intent?
Ms Day, who suffered from mental ill-health, certainly believed that the Department for Work and Pensions had no intention of treating her fairly, as evidenced by Mr Clow’s report.
He said she
was predisposed by her mental health problems to wrongly imagine malign motives on the part of those administering her claim
– but was she wrong?
The coroner stated [boldings mine]:
The administration of Philippa Day’s benefits claim was characterised by multiple errors, some of which occurred repeatedly throughout the period of her claim.
As a result of errors made, Philippa Day’s income from benefits more than halved for a period of several months, causing her severe financial hardship.
To try to cope with the cash shortfall, Ms Day took out high interest loans, creating a financial problem that she did not have the means to solve – and attacking her mental health.
DWP officers – and private PIP assessors – must have known that this was likely but it seems that either they did not care or they wanted it to happen. It seems to This Writer that there is a question not put by the coroner, possibly because it does not fall within his scope. It does fall within mine:
Why would a government officer deliberately push a benefit claimant into severe financial pressure, mental ill-health, and self-harm*?
That is what we see here. There was nothing accidental about it. The officials involved knew what they were doing because they had all the relevant information. The coroner stated as much in his report:
[The] risk was implicit in the information held in connection with the benefits claim and explicit in advice given to those processing her claim by Philippa Day’s community psychiatric nurse shortly prior to Philippa’s overdose.
This information was ignored.
The coroner described the result in his report:
A decision was made in June 2019 to require Philippa Day to attend an assessment at an assessment centre.
No assessment was in fact required in order to determine her claim and there was clear and abundant medical evidence that an assessment outside of the home would exacerbate her mental health against a background of two recent overdoses. The requirement for her to attend this appointment created a risk of a mental health crisis resulting in
an overdose.
Although the error in decision making was drawn to the attention of those administering the claim on more than one occasion, it was not rectified as it should have been.
The DWP made a deliberate decision to ignore the risk of a suicide attempt. And the coroner clearly argued that it was this decision that led to Ms Day’s overdose:
The failure to administer the claim in such a way as to avoid exacerbating Philippa Day’s pre-existing mental health problems was the predominant factor, save for her severe mental illness, affecting a decision taken by Philippa Day to take an overdose of her prescribed insulin on the 7th or 8th August 2019.
The distress caused by the administration of Philippa Day’s welfare benefits claim led to Philippa Day suffering acute distress and exacerbated many of her other chronic stressors.
Were it not for these problems, it is unlikely that Philippa Day would have taken an overdose of her prescribed insulin on 7th or 8th August 2019.
The coroner stated – accurately – that “it is not possible to determine on the available evidence whether or not it was her intention to thereby end her life”.
But attempts to revive her failed and she passed away on October 16, 2019.
Mr Clow’s report went on to raise “matters of concern” that give him reason to believe that further deaths will happen due to deliberate, intentional behaviour by DWP officers.
He stated:
Call handlers [at] the DWP had not received, in their preparatory course prior to commencing work taking calls from claimants, specific training as to how best to interact with persons suffering from mental ill health in such a way as to avoid inadvertently exacerbating the difficulties experienced in progressing claims for benefits by such persons.
If true, this is a deliberate choice by the DWP’s bosses – to withhold training that could prevent deaths.
Records of calls handled were very brief and, at times, inaccurate. The records did not facilitate accurate decision making or enable queries to be dealt with efficiently and without inadvertently exacerbating the difficulties experienced by Philippa Day in progressing her benefits claims .
The word that sticks out like a sore thumb here is “inadvertently”. It seems Mr Clows included it because he had no evidence that the decisions “exacerbating the difficulties experienced by Philippa Day” were deliberate. But there must have been deliberate decisions to make inaccurate reports of calls handled – leading to the consequent failures that pushed Ms Day to her overdose?
(As a reporter, I have to make choices about what information I include in stories and what I leave out. Those choices are dictated by my judgement regarding what is relevant to the article. In this article, for example, I have omitted details of Ms Day’s mental health problems; it is known that she had a mental illness so there is no need to go into the details on this occasion. As benefit assessment officers, it seems to me, those responsible for handling her claim at the DWP had a similar responsibility – to include all relevant information – but they did not. That is a deliberate choice.)
The change of assessment process did not allow for a decision, which was incorrect, to be rectified without evidence of a subsequent change of circumstances.
That must have been a deliberate decision by whoever drafted the regulations controlling this process.
In addition, when a change of review process was appropriate, there was no means by which upcoming appointments could be cancelled without causing prejudice to Philippa Day.
Again, the regulations are drafted by people who know the consequences of the actions they require – and the consequences of the actions they forbid. The government has been providing state benefits for nearly a century and it is unrealistic to believe that cases similar to Philippa Day’s have not been handled before. In fact, the evidence of other deaths suggests that hundreds take place every year.
A misleading letter was sent which led Philippa Day to consider that her benefits would be stopped if she did not attend the upcoming appointment.
This is really vile. Knowing that an assessment outside her home would harm her mental health, DWP officers deliberately put her in fear of losing her benefits if she did not attend one. That is deliberate psychological torture.
Add it all up and we see deliberate decisions that mounted up into a force that pushed Philippa Day towards the overdose that ended her life.
But not one person involved in those decisions will face any penalty for having caused the death of another human being. Not one.
Analysis carried out by the Disability News Service suggests that there could have been as many as 750 benefit claimants of working age who took their lives in 2018.
I stated at the time that “the total number since the Tories introduced PIP – let alone the harsher benefit qualification laws brought in after they came into office in 2010 – is likely to be in the tens of thousands, if not, indeed, hundreds of thousands.”
It is worse than Aktion T4 – the cull of people with disabilities in Nazi Germany during the 1930s and 1940s.
So I repeat my comments at the end of a previous report:
How many benefit assessors from Capita (and fellow private contractor Atos) have contributed to those deaths?
How many officials from the Department for Work and Pensions?
How many Conservative ministers, who imposed the legislation, and backbenchers, who supported it?
And I ask:
When will they be brought to account for the deaths they have caused?
*Not suicide – the coroner’s report showed that Ms Day’s motives cannot be deduced from the evidence available; her overdose could have been a classic “cry for help”.
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Philippa Day: benefit assessment provider Capita cut her benefits and demanded that she attend an assessment centre – which was impossible due to her disability. She took her life in despair.
A coroner’s finding that no fewer than 28 mistakes by the government and its officers led to the death of Mapperley mother Philippa Day is to be welcomed.
A report by benefit assessor Capita also found that three of its employees were responsible for errors that contributed to the events leading to Ms Day’s suicide.
In other words, Capita employees and government officers pushed her to her death. Why are they not facing criminal charges?
Come to that, the system that allowed them to make such mistakes was enforced by Conservative government ministers. Why are they not facing charges?
And ultimately, the system was created by legislation put forward by a Tory Work and Pensions Secretary. Why is that person not facing charges?
If I were found to have caused the death of another person, I would face a charge of murder if it could be proved to have been intentional, or manslaughter if not.
Why are these government-connected individuals allowed to get away without even being challenged?
You might think this one case is bad enough. But consider this:
Analysis carried out by the Disability News Service suggests that there could have been as many as 750 benefit claimants of working age who took their lives in 2018.
And the total number since the Tories introduced PIP – let alone the harsher benefit qualification laws brought in after they came into office in 2010 – is likely to be in the tens of thousands, if not, indeed, hundreds of thousands.
How many benefit assessors from Capita (and fellow private contractor Atos) have contributed to those deaths?
How many officials from the Department for Work and Pensions?
How many Conservative ministers, who imposed the legislation, and backbenchers, who supported it?
The coroner has issued PFD (Prevention of Future Deaths) notices that demand action from the Department for Work and Pensions.
But no action is being taken even to identify the men and/or women responsible for pushing Ms Day to suicide.
It seems the Conservatives have perfected a method of mass-slaughtering innocent people.
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Inquest: did Philippa Day take her own life in despair after benefit assessment provider Capita cut her benefits and demanded that she attend an assessment centre – which was impossible due to her disability?
We’ve been here before, I think. As I recall, coroners tend to back away from criticising the Department for Work and Pensions when disabled benefit claimants die.
But – again, as I recall – questions have been asked about the validity of such inquests after claims were made that some of the relevant evidence was omitted.
This time, it seems very thorough preparations are being made to prevent this from happening; several pre-inquest reviews have been held to discuss the case of Philippa Day.
The mother, from Mapperley, Nottingham, is believed to have taken her own life after a long struggle to have her benefits restored.
When her Disability Living Allowance was converted to the new Personal Independence Payment in January 2019, the government slashed the amount she received from £228 per week to £60.
The most recent pre-inquest hearing centred on discussions between Ms Day, the DWP and private assessment provider company Capita before her death, and the decisions about her benefits that followed.
It seems Capita had demanded that she must attend an assessment centre in person – an impossibility due to her ill-health.
Ms Day was admitted to hospital in August last year – in a coma, according to her family. She never revived and died in October 2019, aged just 27.
The full inquest is due to take place in January.
Let’s hope it makes more sense than some others we have heard recently.
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