A MOCK wedding took place this afternoon to coincide with the Royal one as part of an anti-bedroom tax protest.

The Bolton Against Bedroom Tax group staged a wedding between Dave Puller, aged 67 and Julia Simpkins, aged 56.

The protest acted out a tale of Dave and Julia who fell on hard times after their wedding, losing their jobs and then being subject to the bedroom tax which they could not pay and eventually the pair being made homeless.

As the story was acted out, different speakers took turns on the microphone to speak out against bedroom tax and austerity and highlight the plight of the homeless to contrast with the spectacle of the Royal Wedding happening in Windsor today.

Both the 'bride' and 'groom' are members of Bolton Against Bedroom Tax and had jumped at the chance to take part in the protest.

Ms Simpkins said: "I can't reconcile in my head the amount of money being spent on the 'other wedding', when there are people who just have not got enough money in this country."

One speaker, Billa Ahmed, of Homeless Aid UK spoke at the protest, he said: "One in 200 people in the UK are homeless. In the worst areas it's one in 25. Crisis did a survey and found every 10 minutes someone ends up in temporary accommodation.

"We have people in the area living and ending up on the streets ... This winter in the UK 78 people that were homeless passed away.

"The average life expectancy of someone who is homeless is 47 — that's 30 years younger than the average."

Linda Charnock, the founder of Bolton Against Bedroom Tax, also spoke at the 45 minute protest.

She said during the protest a lady had approached her to say her sister had hanged herself because of the bedroom tax. Mrs Charnock said: "That's why we do this."

Before the staged wedding began, Mrs Charnock, aged 54, from Darcy Lever, said: "We wanted to do this to highlight that poor people can fall in love too and they don't need a £32 million wedding.

"Some people fall in love and they can't afford to get married."

Mrs Charnock founded Bolton Against Bedroom Tax after she was made redundant from her job as a domestic violence adviser around six years ago.

She said: "I think we have prevented evictions in Bolton because of the work we have done to refer people to debt and benefit advice."