Mum's power cut fury

Miss Harrison, of Brighton Road, and her two sons, one of whom is autistic, were without power, light and heating, despite calls to EDF Energy for help.

She told the Herald: "I want it looked into. I want to know what went wrong. It's not a good sign if they can leave a single parent with two kids for 28 hours with no electricity. I was pulling my hair out."

Miss Harrison said workmen from the company fitted a new key meter last Tuesday and told her a key would be in the post, and should arrive by the weekend.

They put 10 credit on the meter to help, but Miss Harrison said the key never arrived and the credit finally ran out on Monday morning.

She repeatedly rang the 24-hour helpline asking for someone to come out with a key on Monday, but no-one arrived.

Miss Harrison said someone finally turned up with a key on Tuesday afternoon, but they had all had to endure a night with no heating and lost all the food in the fridge.

She said she could not use candles for lights because of the dangers to her autistic son, so she used bicycle lights instead.

An EDF Energy spokesman said: "We would like to apologise unreservedly to Jane Harrison for the inconvenience she has experienced following the recent replacement of her credit meter to a pre-payment meter."