Disabled man who saved £50k from care fund for Florida trip has to give money back

A disabled man who saved £50,000 from his round-the-clock care fund for a holiday to Florida with his carers has had the money “clawed back” by the council.

Nathan Lee Davies, 47, receives direct payments of £11,000 a month from Wrexham County Borough Council to manage his care for Friedreich’s Ataxia, a progressive genetic disease of the nervous system.

The payments include cinema tickets and trips to pubs and restaurants, which he decided to forgo and instead save the money for a six-day break to Florida “to have a bit of respite from the mundane reality of everyday life”.

He saved £50,000 over a number of years, including during lockdown when cinemas and restaurants were closed, while providing the council with bank statements every quarter to show he was not misusing the money.

But the council said “surplus funds are to be returned”, after they discovered he had planned to use the money to pay for the trip, which would have been his first holiday in 24 years, for himself and his two full-time carers.

It suspended his payments for October, November and December, meaning he had to shell out £33,000 of his “savings” to continue funding the care.

The council said it was allowed to claw back the cash because Mr Davies had not spent it on “specified social activities”.

A council spokesman said: “Direct payments are not a benefit. They are a payment to support payment for care and support and so should not be considered as part of someone’s ‘income’ as they are not.”

His social worker said he must pay the money back to the council after he excitedly told her about his plans to go on holiday.

“I was stunned that they would treat me like that,” he said. “I deserve to escape from the home which is being made a prison,” he told the BBC podcast Access All.

Mr Davies appealed the council’s decision but lost.