Widow issues pension plea to Government

By Juliette Maxam

A POLICE widow from Essex joined a delegation to the Home Office yesterday to make a plea for them to keep their police pensions should they start a life with someone new.

Currently, widows and widowers of police officers lose their police pension benefits if they remarry or live with a new partner.

In April, the Government is bringing in new legislation allowing police widows and widowers to continue claiming the pension even if they find new love. However, up to now the Government has said the new laws would not apply retrospectively.

Carole Hudson, of Holland-on-Sea, yesterday met a Home Office representative to hand in letters of protest along with other widows who have joined a campaign led by the National Association of Retired Police Officers.

The group was told the Home Office is now looking into the possibility of extending the new law to include current widows and widowers.

Mrs Hudson's husband, Peter, paid 11% of his income into a police pension during his 33 years of service as an officer in Clacton and Harwich. He died in 2002.

Mrs Hudson said if she found new love she would be faced with the choice of losing the pension or lying about her new partner.

“It doesn't matter whether your husband died in the line of duty or of natural causes, they would take your pension away if you found new love. The new law will enable widows to keep the pension and we're saying it's unfair not to apply it to us.”

She added: “We will end up with a two-tier pension service and we will be the ones who are forgotten about.”

A Home Office spokeswoman said: “Normal policy is that new benefits are not applied retrospectively. To routinely backdate all pension scheme improvements would have serious cost implications.

“We do have a great deal of sympathy to police widows and widowers. We are currently considering the options and implications of extending the benefit to widows and widowers retrospectively.”