The Supreme Court has ruled, with a four-to-one majority, that a Northern Irish mother is entitled to widowed parent's allowance following the death of her partner, despite the couple having not being married.
Siobhan McLaughlin was denied both a lump sum of £2,000 bereavement payment, as well as a widowed parent allowance of £118 a week, despite having lived with John Adams and having four children by him. Ms McLaughlin had initially won a case in 2015 at the High Court on the grounds that refusal to pay her widow's allowance on the grounds of her marriage status violated the Human Rights Act. Despite this, the decision was overturned a year later, leading her to bring the case to the Supreme Court when it sat in Belfast for the first time. Equal rights The court case has garnered natio...
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