Difficult case needing assistance

We had a very difficult case to deal with this week.  We were asked to help a lady who was seriously sexually attacked as a very young child.  Her home life was not good at all, and when she was 16 she witnessed her father commit suicide which left her extremely traumatised.  Years later, after the birth of her son, she was diagnosed with mental health problems, and it was agreed that she has probably suffered with this for almost all of her life.

Two years ago social services became involved when she was terrorised by a group of young men, friends of her neighbour.  Their antisocial behaviour caused her to attempt taking her own life as she felt unsupported and had no one to help her.  Fortunately she was found and taken to hospital.  She is a very vulnerable person, who is easily taken advantage of.  Her supposed friends ran up debts in her name, leaving her to foot the bill which she cannot afford to do.  Given her mental health issues and how stressed she became in the past over things we were asked to help by paying the cost of the debt relief order for her, so that these debts that are of no fault of her own can be sorted out.  

NB  It might seem that we are helping a lot of people out in this way just recently, but debt is a crushing concern.  Someone could be working and paying all their bills without worry, but then something happens, through no fault of their own, a car accident, illness, bereavement, job loss, redundancy, and suddenly it all comes crashing down like a house of cards around them.  Being on benefits is not the breeze you might see portrayed in the media, there are people that are living a hand to mouth existence, sometimes regularly missing meals, or going without heating their homes.  So having that bit extra to cover a bill becomes unachievable.  You miss the first payment, its okay, you’ll catch up, but you are already on a slippery slope.  When people are faced with the decision of do they spend £10 on food for the week or send that money off to chip away at a bill, then you can see the dilemma and just how crushing debt can become.  So to help out this way can in some cases mean quite literally the difference between life and death.  So every penny you donate to us, is being used to help people in desperate need, for which we warmly thank you.