TRADE unionists and activists targeted dozens of jobcentres yesterday in a national day of action to protest against appalling coalition benefits sanctions which have thrown 1.2 million people into destitution.

Demonstrators took to the streets across Britain to protest against a system which persecutes the country’s poorest and most vulnerable people — driving dozens to suicide.

The protests were organised by Unite Community, a section of the general union for people not in traditional workplaces, which said it was delighted with the response.

And the union was joined by supporters of other anti-sanctions campaigns, including the People’s Assembly.Unite Community national organiser Liane Groves said 78 actions took place across the country.

In Teesside in England campaigners staged a rolling programme of protests targeting jobcentres in Redcar, Middlesbrough, Stockton, Thornaby and Hartlepool.

Speaking in Middlesbrough, Tracy Harvey, Unite Community equality officer for Teesside, said: “Thousands of people are being sanctioned every month. 

“Suicide rates are skyrocketing as people struggle with debts.”In Chesterfield 60 protesters staged a “die-in” at the town’s jobcentre.

A protest also took place on Merseyside, where trade unionists are campaigning for the ousting at the general election of West Wirral Tory MP and Employment Minister Esther McVey, who has been responsible for implementing benefit sanctions.

Wirral TUC secretary Alec McFadden said his branch “fully supports the day of action to stop benefit sanctions.

“We also redouble our efforts to sack Esther McVey.”Other centres targeted included Birmingham, Hartlepool, Leeds, Halifax, Merthyr, Kent, Cardiff, Manchester and Liverpool.

In London a series of events culminated in a two-hour demonstration at the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) at Caxton House.

Gill Thompson, sister of ex-soldier David Clapson who died starving and destitute in 2013 after being sanctioned for missing a meeting, handed in a 211,822-name petition at the DWP urging the Prime Minister to investigate benefit sanctions.

She said: “I want to know how ministers who state everything is done to support the vulnerable can justify their actions leaving people destitute, driving them to foodbanks, and leading to starvation and death. “Do we want to live in a society where the vulnerable are victimised? I certainly do not.”At many of the jobcentre protests victims of sanctions told of their experiences.

After yesterday’s London demonstration at the DWP, Liane Groves said: “We have been able to highlight the cruelty of sanctions and the effects they are having on the lives of ordinary people.

“One hundred thousand children are in families where their parents have been sanctioned and in the sixth-richest country in the world it is totally unacceptable that children are going hungry because their parents are unemployed.”