A HORWICH mother who was left without gas for a month has advised others to fight for their rights after being awarded a pay out.

Kelly Sinclair was initially offered a £20 compensation payment after Scottish Power failed to recognise an issue with her gas card, leaving her and her five-year-old daughter, Libby, who suffers with asthma, without power for a month.

But after contesting the compensation, sighting the fact that she was forced to purchase electric heaters and regularly travel to her mother’s house to shower, Miss Sinclair was offered five times that amount, accepting a £100 pay out.

The problems first arose after the 28-year-old went to top up her emergency gas supply to find there was none there.

She contacted Scottish Power who sent out an engineer who topped up the emergency supply, which is fixed at £5.

Once this supply ran out, Miss Sinclair again found herself unable to top up the supply and again had to call out an engineer, who carried out the same procedure.

In total the young mother, who lives in Carwood Grove in Horwich, said this process happened about four or five times.

She added: “This whole saga basically left me without gas for about four weeks and I had to go out and buy electric heaters just to keep my daughter warm — she suffers with asthma so it really wasn’t good for her.

“Eventually they realised I needed a new gas card and said they would send one straight away but a week went by and nothing had arrived — at this point I was crying, I didn’t want Libby to have to cope with this.”

Eventually a new card arrived, but Miss Sinclair was left with an £11 debt on her meter, which she felt she should not have to pay because of her ordeal.

She said: “I had to buy electric heaters and not to mention the sheer hours I spent on the phone with Scottish Power trying to get to the bottom of it, it didn’t seem fair.”

She was offered £20 by the energy firm as means of an apology but decided this was not enough and contacted Ofgem as well as the Citizens Advice extra help unit and The Bolton News, who all contacted Scottish Power.

Miss Sinclair has since had that offer raised to £100, a fee she has accepted and believes other people need to fight for a fair deal after such inconveniences.

She added: “It’s definitely not about the money, it is about the principle and I wasn’t treated well.

“It shouldn’t have got to a stage where I was crying and begging other people to help me and my daughter.”

A spokesman for Scottish Power said: “We apologise for the inconvenience Miss Sinclair experienced as a result of being unable to access emergency credit on her meter.

"The issue has now been resolved and in way of apology we have offered £100 good will in light of the inconvenience experienced by Miss Sinclair, which she has accepted.”