Refugee attacked after HIV status revealed due to unsafe access to post

“However, this means thousands of people miss out, simply because they lack a secure postal address. And for people experiencing homelessness or domestic abuse, letters can be a lifeline to access vital support.”

While Maneol was applying for refugee status in the UK, his “post problems” threatened his “basic ability to survive”. When the Home Office sent him an ASPEN card – the documentation that asylum seekers can use to purchase food – it was stolen by someone else at the hotel. “I had to turn to another charity for food,” he said.

Worse still, multiple Home Office appointment letters went missing.  

“I’ve missed medical appointments for the same reason,” he explains. “I don’t want to waste anyone’s time, or for them to think I am not reliable. But when it came to the Home Office, I was so afraid they would just drop my case and say I had to leave the UK.”

UK public services still rely heavily on post. According to 2023 Citizens Advice research, 77% of UK adults received important information, like benefits paperwork, court documents, bills or ID through the post.

Digitally excluded people are particularly reliant on the service. Research conducted by Lloyds in 2022 revealed a staggering 14 million UK adults (27%) have the lowest level of digital literacy, and struggle interacting with online services

Meanwhile, victims of domestic abuse may experience perpetrators opening, hiding or destroying their post.

Ruqayya – not her real name – hoped she would have a “good, normal, life” when she moved to the UK after her wedding.

“But my ex-husband turned out to be my enemy,” she recalls. “He treated me like I was a toy in his hands. Or like I was nothing – like furniture in the house.”

Ruqayya’s then-husband forced her to stay indoors, banning her from making friends or continuing her education. He also hid her post, collecting bank statements and legal letters from the postman before she had a chance to see them.

“My ex would take the letters and read them in a private locked room. I can see it in my mind now – brown envelopes being taken into this room that I was forbidden to go into,” she recalls.

“He didn’t want me to know the truth about anything – and stopping me from seeing my letters was a way of keeping me blind. I didn’t know about benefits or tax credits. I didn’t know how to navigate systems. I didn’t know anything except what my ex wanted me to know. It meant that when he hurt me, he could tell me, ‘You have nothing. This country won’t help you – you will be on the streets. This is it.’”

Despite his threats, Ruqayya eventually ended the marriage. But her ex-husband continued to control family benefits by redirecting letters to other addresses. She was forced to “beg” him for money.

“Sometimes he’d block the card, and I’d have to go to the food bank just to get bread, milk and eggs for the children,” she said.

“One day I was at my children’s school and I started crying, because I had no money and things were so bad. I said, ‘I don’t know what to do, my children are in need and I’m in need too.’ A lady who worked at the school told me to go to Citizens Advice.”

An adviser helped her apply for a divorce, set up a bank account and apply for benefits in her own name.

“She asked, ‘Don’t you receive letters?’ I said, yes, I do receive letters – from the school, the hospital, that sort of thing,” Ruqayya recalls. “She looked surprised. She said, ‘Anything to do with your bills? Or benefits?’ And I just started crying, because I didn’t know what she was talking about.”

Ruqayya is now much more independent. But she fears that other women are “going through the same thing.”

“It would help a lot if there was somewhere for women – especially women who go through abuse – to go to collect their letters, where they knew their post would be safe,” she said. “Husbands can hurt women by hiding things from them.”

Citizens Advice have long campaigned for an ‘Address & Collect’ scheme – a free service where people could opt to collect their post at a Post Office. But it will require postal regulator Ofcom to extend the universal service obligation to include such a scheme, said MacInnes

“Without Ofcom taking the lead in finding a long-lasting solution to post exclusion, we’ll continue to face a situation where access to post is not truly universal.

“Every day this problem goes unsolved, more and more people are finding themselves locked out of the services and support that they desperately need.”

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