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Published On: Wed, May 15th, 2013

Stephanie Bottrill, British woman commits suicide, blames government and the ‘bedroom tax’

A British woman who committed suicide left a note blaming the government’s so-called “bedroom tax” for her death, authorities released this week.

Stephanie Bottrill, who killed herself earlier this month, wrote in her final letter: “I don’t [blame] anyone for me death expect the government.”

Stephanie Botrill photoHer son Steven, age 27, said she was struggling to cope after being told to pay 40 pounds extra per week for “under-occupied” bedrooms in her Solihull home.

£20-a-week extra for two under-occupied bedrooms at her home in Solihull.

He told the Sunday People: “I couldn’t believe it. She said not to blame ourselves, it was the government and what they were doing that caused her to do it.

“She was fine before this bedroom tax. It was dreamt up in London, by people living in offices and big houses. They have no idea the effect it has on people like my mum.”

Bottrill died 10 days ago. She was 53.

“I can’t afford to live any more,” she had told neighbors.

Describing her case as a “tragedy”, shadow chancellor Ed Balls told Sky News’ Murnaghan program the bedroom tax was “driving people to the edge of despair in their many thousands across the country”.

Solihull Council Labour group leader David Jamieson, who knows the family, said: “I’m absolutely appalled this poor lady has taken her own life because she was worried how she would pay the bedroom tax.

“I hope the government will sit up and take notice and reconsider this policy.”

The bedroom tax means people of a working age in social housing who have a spare bedroom will find housing benefit claims reduced by £40 to £80 a month.

As a child she was diagnosed with the auto-immune system deficiency, Myasthenia gravis; therefore she could not work. The illness made her weak and she had to take constant medication. Doctors had told her she was too ill to hold down a job, but she had never been registered as disabled, so she lived without disability benefit.

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- Writer and Co-Founder of The Global Dispatch, Brandon has been covering news, offering commentary for years, beginning professionally in 2003 on Crazed Fanboy before expanding into other blogs and sites. Appearing on several radio shows, Brandon has hosted Dispatch Radio, written his first novel (The Rise of the Templar) and completed the three years Global University program in Ministerial Studies to be a pastor. To Contact Brandon email [email protected] ATTN: BRANDON

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  1. Social Housing Issues : Ben’s Pubic Eye #1 says:

    […] tax has already thrown it’s similarly rotting limb into the stirrups on April 1st and claimed his first victim in the shape of poor Stephanie Bottril, who killed herself last weekend, leaving a suicide note […]

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