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United Kingdom: Cold snap kills 2,500

By Chris Slocombe, Reuters UK

 
December 23, 2003

 

LONDON (Reuters) - Cold weather has killed more than 2,500 people in the last week, a public health body has said the day after an inquest into an octogenarian couple who died in their home after their gas was cut off.

The Faculty of Public Health said on Tuesday a higher proportion of the population died from cold Winters than in Finland or Russia.

It urged the public to watch for old people suffering in under-heated homes as a cold snap gripped the country.

But it was a warning that came too late for George and Gertrude Bates, who died of cold-related illnesses.

British Gas said data protection laws had prevented them from alerting social services after they cut off supply to the Bates' home for failing to pay their bill.

"At the moment it looks like we're protecting data at the expense of people," said Baroness Greengross of Age Concern England. "This is something we cannot allow."

British Gas told Reuters their representative had spoken to Gertrude Bates and she had told him social services were looking after the bill.

The inquest heard that when police found the couple in a decomposed state in October they discovered cash in the house more than ten times the 140 pound unpaid bill.

British Gas said they had made 10 attempts to contact the Bates, and their policy was to not cut off the elderly or vulnerable during the winter period from October to March.

British Gas' statement at the inquest about data laws drew criticism from welfare charities and Health Minister Stephen Ladyman.

"The suspicion that somebody is vulnerable and could do with a visit from social services does not seem to me to be a protectable piece of information under the act," he told BBC Radio.

The Data Protection Act was under scrutiny last week in the wake of school caretaker Ian Huntley's conviction for the murder to two 10-year-old girls.

Humberside police said the laws had compelled them to delete records of previous sex abuse allegations against Huntley which, had they been known, would have stop him getting work at the girls' school.

 

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