Mum takes government to court over benefit cap as kids born from rape

A mother who had two children conceived as a result of rape will be allowed to take the Government to court over the two-child benefit cap.

The woman has accused the Department for Work and Pensions of telling her she was ‘raped at the wrong time’ as a judge allowed her case to proceed to the High Court next year.

The mother, known only as EFG, became pregnant by rape twice while in a violent and coercive relationship which began when she was a teenager.

She then had two more children, both of whom were conceived consensually in a later long-term relationship, but has been told she cannot claim the benefit for her two younger children.

The mother is bringing the claim against the DWP alongside another woman, referred to as LMN, who was subjected to domestic abuse by fathers of her children.

They claim the two-child policy breaches their human rights and is ‘discriminatory and irrational’.

They are being represented by charity the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG), which said the women are challenging the rules on exceptions to the two-child limit for universal credit.

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The two-child cap was introduced in 2017 and restricts child tax credit and child benefit payments to the first two children in a household. There is an existing non-consensual conception exception, sometimes known as the rape clause, which can be made for children conceived as a result of non-consensual sex or when in an abusive relationship.

Solicitor Claire Hall, head of strategic litigation at CPAG, said: ‘Both of these women are subjected to the two-child limit despite the fact that they have conceived children non-consensually.

‘And the reason for that is because the exemption only applies to third or subsequent children, and we’re saying that they should be able to get the exemption for the non-consensually conceived children, irrespective of at what point they are born.’

Speaking through the charity, EFG said: ‘If I had been raped after my first two children were born, the exceptions would be applied, so basically [DWP] are telling me that I was raped at the wrong time.’

The second woman, LMN, is a mother-of-six who was subjected to violent and coercive behaviour by former partners with whom she had children. CPAG said that she was eventually granted an exception for her youngest child but ‘went for years without this support’.

The charity said that both women are estimated to have missed out on thousands of pounds of child support because of the current two-child policy.

Allowing the women’s case to proceed after a hearing last month, Mr Justice Fordham said: ‘I have arrived at the conclusion that the issues in this case warrant ventilation and authoritative resolution at a substantive hearing.’

A date has not been set for the first hearing but CPAG said this is expected at some point in 2025.

Alison Garnham, the charity’s chief executive, said: ‘The families in this case are trying to rebuild their lives after many years of abuse. But their task is made all the harder by inhumane benefit rules that pile more pain on those they should be protecting.

‘Social security should provide stability and support at times of need, but the brutality of the two-child limit is plain to see in what these women and children have been through. Their experience should focus minds on the need to abolish the policy in its entirety before more damage is done.’

A DWP spokesman said: ‘We cannot comment on ongoing legal cases.’