Hammersmith law
The Hammersmith Law Centre is due to lose 60% of its funding in cuts voted for by the Tory Hammersmith and Fulham Council. Thousands of poorer people in the borough will lose access to the free legal advice, support and representation that the centre has provided for nearly 30 years.
All stories and interviews so far on this topic are listed in the menu to the right.
This site is now adding interviews with people who have gone to the law centre for legal help and advice over the years.
Below, Hammersmith law centre clients Vanildo and Claudia Fernandas explain why they sought help from the law centre. They took advice from the law centre this year about emergency housing and benefits.
Vanildo Fernandas was waiting for a bus on Fulham Palace Road very late one night last October when two men walked over and attacked him with a couple of knives. 'Maybe for a robbery,' Vanildo's wife Claudia says. 'I don't know what they did it for. He was waiting by himself for the bus. There was one Iranian guy and one Afghan guy.'
Vanildo, 29, had just finished a night-shift in the restaurant kitchen he'd been working in for about a fortnight. 'When he finished the night, he called me to say that he would be home in about 30 minutes,' Claudia says. Needless to say, he wasn't. 'They cut him everywhere – here, on his throat (they cut his oesophagus open), on his arms, and down his chest. There is nerve problems in his arms now. He has to also have food and drink through a tube in his stomach [because the cut to his oesophagus is still open]. It is [going to take a long time] for him to heal. He is frightened, very difficult. I worry about leaving him alone. There is, um, how do you say it, his imagination?'
Claudia is 37 and from Brasil. Vanildo has Italian and Brasilian citizenship. Claudia first came to England in 2000, as a student. She met Vanildo in England. 'Then, I wanted to go back to Brasil to see my family, and he came to Brasil when I went and asked me if I would marry him. We got married there, in Brasil.'
They returned to England in September last year. 'I like this place. I want to improve my English. When [my English] gets better, I can get a better job. I work in a pharmacy in Hammersmith for six days a week – all day Saturday. I am an assistant pharmacist. I also did, I also have, a course for travel agents course in Brasil. I would like to work as a travel agent. That's why I would like my English to be better.' In Brasil, she taught Portuguese.
Vanildo wants to improve his English, and find a job in IT when his health improves. 'The healing, the healing for him, will take a long time,' Claudia says. Vanildo had been just a few weeks in England, and working for about a fortnight, when he was attacked by the guys with the knives. He spent the six months after that in hospital.
'I had to keep working when he was in hospital,' Claudia says. Meeting their housing costs on her single income was the problem by this point. 'I went to stay with a friend, which was very good. They were very helpful to me, but they did not have room for Vanildo when he was [due to] get out of hospital. My English isn't very good and it was hard to deal with, you know, the legal [jargon] and all this paperwork. I wanted support. The housing benefits woman… grrrrr. I did not understand. I did not understand why I could not get help. They would not help me.'
'The people at the courts told me that they could not help me, but they told me to talk to the law centre. They [the law centre] helped very quickly, [in] one or two weeks. They fixed [the problem with] the housing benefits and the CAB (Citizens' Advice Bureaux) fixed the housing. We are living in temporary accommodation now. It costs me £26 a week. It's a nice place, a good place. Now, Vanildo will get £60 week in Disability Living Allowance now. We found this out this morning and that will start next month. That will help us.'
