Woman’s suicide note told of bedroom tax fears

Stephanie Bottrill’s family said she was tortured about how she could afford an extra £20 a week for the two spare bedrooms in her home – money she owed because of the Government’s spare room subsidy policy.

Ms Bottrill died in the early hours of May 4 after she was struck by a lorry on the M6 motorway, which is a short walk from her terrace house.

Just days before, the 53-year-old from Solihull in the West Midlands told neighbours: “I can’t afford to live any more.”

They described her as “a good person”, who had grown increasingly worried about how she was going to cope with her enforced house move, and revealed money worries had previously led her to sit in the cold during winter for fear of not being able to afford gas and electricity.

In a letter to her son Steven, 27, she said: “Don’t blame yourself for me ending my life. The only people to blame are the Government.”

He told the Sunday People newspaper: “I couldn’t believe it. She was fine before the bedroom tax. It was dreamt up in London, by people in offices and big houses. They have no idea the effect it has on people like my mum.”

He said his mum was distraught at having to leave the home she had lived in for 18 years, where she had raised two children as a single mother.

Tracey Hurley, who lives next door, said she had taken a meal round on the day before her death as Ms Bottrill had not eaten in three days.

She recalled how over winter “there was a never a light on in the house”, and the heating was off because Ms Bottrill feared she could not afford to pay the bill for gas and electricity.

Mrs Hurley, who had been her neighbour for four years, added Ms Bottrill had “gone round everybody on the Friday giving them hugs”.

“But what I didn’t know was that she had obviously been planning to do it because she’d written the notes on the Thursday.”

Ms Bottrill had also packed up the few belongings in her house in Meriden Drive, the newspaper said.

She was living in her three-bedroom home on her own after her two children moved out, leaving her with a 25 per cent reduction in her housing benefit.

Solihull Council Labour group leader David Jamieson, who brought the case to light, said: “She was told she’d have to move out because of this tax and that caused great worry and distress.

“I think what this highlights is this Government policy is just too inflexible and is actually cruel for some people.”

Under the spare room subsidy policy, benefits will be deducted from social housing tenants of working age who are found to have more bedrooms than they need. They either then have to pay the difference themselves, or move into other accommodation.

“Steph was a vulnerable person, she couldn’t go to work,” added Mrs Hurley. “It wasn’t like she had refused to move either, she had been to see a bungalow with her mom a couple of days before.”

Another neighbour said local residents had raised a collection to help pay for Ms Bottrill’s funeral. “She had nothing in the end, and it’s really upset a lot of people in the street,” she said.

Shadow chancellor Ed Balls said yesterday: “I’m for tough welfare reform but not hitting the most vulnerable, the disabled. It’s not fair. There is no doubt this policy is driving people to the edge of despair in their many thousands across the country.”

He called on the Government to look again at the bedroom tax policy, adding he was not referring specifically to the case of Ms Bottrill, but talking from his own constituents’ experiences.