'I brought a judicial review against the DWP and won £7,000'

Dr Osman has obliged the DWP to meet its responsibilities to blind people

A man has received £7,000 in a settlement after he brought a judicial review against the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) for sending him letters he could not read.

Dr Yusuf Osman, 44, who is blind, asked the DWP to send him benefit letters in braille or as accessible PDFs.

However, the DWP continued sending him inaccessible or significantly delayed correspondence.

The DWP says it is "sorry for falling short" in its requirements in the case.

Dr Osman, from Croydon in south London, is a self-employed access consultant and receives Employment Support Allowance (ESA) and Personal Independence Payment (PIP) benefits related to his disability.

He explained the problems began in 2016 when the DWP regularly sent printed letters that he could not read.

Under the Equality Act 2010, organisations have a duty to take steps to ensure information is provided in an accessible format for disabled people who require this, and to send it within a reasonable time frame.

Despite this, Dr Osman said when he asked to be sent braille letters he often did not receive them until weeks later.

Dr Osman thinks without court action the DWP "wouldn't have made any changes"

He requested accessible PDFs of his letters to be emailed to him instead, hoping it would be quicker - but the DWP sent him PDF scans of letters which couldn't be used with screen-reading software.

When he was eventually sent accessible letters they were up to three months late in arriving, including a letter about how much he would receive in benefits.

"The DWP tried to claim I could go on to the internet and get that information, but there were three or four different components of ESA that I was getting and not all of them are listed on the website," Mr Osman said.

Dr Osman said he took the DWP to court eventually, adding: "If the government are sending letters to everybody telling them... I ought to be able to access those letters as well".

He argued that if he hadn't taken it to court the DWP would have taken no action.

"Right up until the court case the DWP was still sending me accessible letters [that were arriving] four and six weeks after they were dated, so they were still not sending them in a timely fashion."

As part of Dr Osman's case, Royal National Institute of Blind People and several blind or visually impaired people gave witness statements to show he was not the only person experiencing these issues.

'I feel vindicated'

Both sides agreed to a settlement which was formalised by the High Court in what is known as a consent order. It also declared the DWP failed to make reasonable adjustments for Dr Osman contrary to the Equality Act 2010.

The DWP agreed to pay Dr Osman £7,000 and has invited him contribute to its reasonable adjustments forum, in addition to inviting him to act as a tester for future IT changes to systems for PIP and the DWP.

Describing his legal journey as "mentally and physically draining", Dr Osman said: "The fact that [I got] everything I had wanted just vindicated the whole effort.

"I really hope that now people can just go to the DWP and say, 'Look, I'm blind. I told you I needed stuff in braille, you've been sending me stuff by PDF which I can't read. Look at this judgement... what are you going to do?'"

A DWP spokesperson said: "We are sorry for falling short in meeting our accessibility requirements in this instance.

"We have already made changes to improve this and will continue to work with our disabled customers to offer them the best possible service."

Follow BBC London on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [e-mail]