Coventry family is desperate to downsize...

[dutchman]

A family hit by the so-called ‘bedroom tax’ say they are desperate to downsize after being robbed at gunpoint in their Coventry home – but there are no suitable properties.



The Pinfield family say they are struggling on the breadline and having to go without food since the benefit changes were introduced.

Amanda Pinfield lives in Almond Tree Avenue, Bell Green, with her husband, Gary, and their son, 21-year-old Matthew, and family dog Phoenix.

The government’s controversial welfare reforms have left them having to pay a surcharge of £60 a month for the spare bedroom since coming in to force last month.

The family are desperate to downsize and leave their home of 20 years after masked robbers forced their way in to the semi-detached house and stole their savings.

The terrifying raid saw the armed gang get away with two Blackberry phones and £8,000 from a safe in December 2011.

Amanda says the money had been withdrawn from the bank because her daughter, Rebecca, was due to use it to get married that month.

“I opened the front door and there was a bloke there masked up from head to toe and holding a shot gun,” Amanda explains.

“He said to me: ‘Don’t scream or I’ll kill you.’

“I went to shut the door and he swung it back at me and I fell back behind the door. Two others in masks ran in and straight upstairs. My husband was in the living room watching football and thought I had fallen over.

“He heard me scream and then a fourth man came in and he tried to fight him. The two downstairs both had guns and got my husband while I was hiding in the kitchen.

“Phoenix was barking like mad and I thought they were going to shoot him. They just kept saying ‘where’s the lady?’ They one of them came in to the kitchen with a shotgun and said: ‘You have eight seconds to get the key or I’ll kill you.”

Gary is registered disabled with a bad back and all three family members are unemployed.

Amanda says the family survives on £260 a fortnight. The ‘bedroom tax’ will see them pay £30 a fortnight for the spare room at the three-bed property.

Amanda said: “We were devastated. I still am now. I can’t talk about it without crying. I just can’t bear being in that house. And now they say I have this spare bedroom but we have to pay it because if not I’m going to be in arrears and then you can’t get another place.

“We have to go without food to pay and we’re just waiting for somewhere smaller.”