Bank chaos forces mother to shoplift
A MOTHER of two resorted to shoplifting to feed her children after being left penniless by the NatWest banking crisis.
A police officer, called to deal with the 37-year-old at a store in Essex yesterday, was so shocked he contacted the Sunday Express to register his disgust.
He said: “This was a single mother who struggles by on 20 hours’ work a week. She’s never done anything bad in her life.
“But due to the banking crisis, she has gone out and stolen food. Her 18-month-old baby was so hungry it was screaming.
“It was sad to see someone in that state because a bank has not sorted itself out.”
The woman, who also has an 11-year-old, received a caution. Officers had a whip-round, gave her £60 and drove her home.
The computer glitch, with thousands unable to access accounts or pay bills, also left the parents of a cancer sufferer pleading with staff of a clinic in Mexico not to turn off her life-support machine.
This was a single mother who struggles by on 20 hours’ work a week. She’s never done anything bad in her life
Steven and Lauren Downie could not transfer funds from a NatWest account to Hospital Angeles, in Tijuana, to pay a bill.
Linza Corp, of Norfolk-based charity Families Against Neuroblastoma, said nurses attempted to lead Steven, 34, and Lauren, 27, into a side-room while doctors planned to unplug the girl’s ventilator. The couple managed to convince staff to allow Olivia, seven, to continue her fight.
The family had travelled to Mexico in a last-ditch attempt to treat the girl’s rare cancer, stage four neuroblastoma, but she failed to respond to the treatment.
Well-wishers raised £100,000 to fly the girl back home to Aberdeenshire and an air ambulance was on standby last night.
A NatWest spokeswoman said: “We are ready to transfer funds as soon as we have the banking details of the hospital.”
The bank opened hundreds of branches yesterday to clear a backlog of chaos and 900 will be staffed until midday today.