What is an interview under caution?
The caution
"You do not have to say anything. But it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence."
This means that you can refuse to answer a question or to say anything at all. But if you bring something up later (for example, in court) that you didn't mention at the interview, the court is allowed to be suspicious about why you didn’t explain it at the time. This doesn’t mean that you should ever feel that you have to say something if you are unhappy with what you’ve been asked or the way it was asked.
An interview under caution is a taped interview carried out by the DWP or your local council when they think you might have misled them about something to do with your benefits. An interview is one of the things they can do to help them decide what’s happened and what to do next - it doesn’t necessarily mean you have done anything wrong or that they’re about to take you to court.
‘Under caution' means that they will tell you what rights you have during the interview. You’ve probably heard it in TV dramas: 'You have the right to remain silent…'. But it does not mean that you are under arrest or that it’s anything to do with the police! If you aren’t told your rights (cautioned) when they talk to you, any court that later looked at your case could decide to ignore what you said. If you’re cautioned, then what you say can be used as evidence.
Why do they want to interview you?
The benefits and fraud sections in the DWP/council
If the DWP or council suspect you've been paid too much benefit the people dealing with whether you’ve been overpaid are the benefits section. It is the fraud section's job to do interviews under caution and to investigate whether there has been any fraud.
If the DWP or council notice something that could be benefit fraud they ask their fraud section to check it out.
As a general rule, you have to tell the DWP or council if something changes that may affect the benefits you get. Sometimes the DWP or council may think that your situation has changed, or that what you put on your claim was wrong, even though you haven’t told them so. This may be because someone has told them something, or, more commonly, because they’ve found that the records about you on different computers don’t match up. Sometimes this happens because you tell one office about a change without realising that you need to tell each benefits office separately. Or it may be, for example, that you thought that you didn’t need to tell them about your savings, or some work you did, thinking that it wouldn’t affect your benefit. It may be that they have got it wrong or that it was a mistake - or it could be fraud.
So, you’ve been asked to an interview under caution: what now?
- Don't ignore it
- Understand what the problem is
- Get help and advice
It's really important to get an independent adviser or solicitor to help you with your case and represent you at the interview. This will give you the best chance of getting a good result. An adviser can check whether you are entitled to the benefits or whether the case against you is weak. A solicitor can advise you about your rights in the interview which could become part of a criminal investigation. However, you might not be able to get all this help, either because you can’t find an adviser who can help you, or because you can’t afford a solicitor. So this guide will help to answer some of your questions, work out what help you might be able to get and give you an idea of some things you can do to help yourself.
