Phillip Herron: Inside a single dad’s tragic end

Being a dad means protecting, providing, and giving your children a sense of safety. But what happens when the system you rely on fails?

Phillip Herron’s story isn’t just shocking — it is a painful warning of what happens when a struggling parent is left alone with debt, anxiety, and silence from those who were supposed to help

A source of pain

Phillip Herron, a factory worker and devoted single father of three from Durham, England, had only $6 in his bank account when he decided to end his life in 2019. He was just 34 years old. The reason — the weeks-long wait for his first Universal Credit payment — a delay that proved too long, too cruel, and ultimately fatal

Universal Credit is a British welfare scheme designed to replace six older benefits with a single monthly payment, intended to simplify the system and encourage employment. But for many, it has become a source of hardship.

Like so many others in crisis, Phillip quietly applied for Universal Credit, never telling his family about the depth of his struggles. He was unemployed, barely managing to feed and clothe his children, falling behind on rent, and drowning in nearly $25,000 of debt — including payday loans with outrageous interest rates of over 1,000%.

The breaking point”

Like countless others, he turned to the system — but what he got was silence, delays, and growing debt. Universal Credit, introduced in 2013, requires new claimants to wait at least five weeks before receiving their first payment. For people already in crisis, that wait can be deadly.

“When people ask for help, they’re already desperate,” Phillip’s mother, Sheena Derbyshire, said. “Making them wait this long? It’s dangerous.” For Phillip, the pressure and waiting became unbearable. “There’s no reason it should take so long. Phillip already had problems, but I believe this was the breaking point,” Sheena added.

A shock to the family

Just hours before his death, Phillip posted a tearful selfie from inside his car along with a goodbye note. The next day, on a quiet rural road, he took his life. His mother was devastated: “It was a total shock,” she told the Daily Mirror. “We didn’t know how bad things were. In his note, he wrote that the family would be better off without him. Those words broke me.”