Darlington man offered £30 after being left without electricity

David Kennedy, who suffers with sleep apnoea and diabetes, was left extremely concerned after his power was turned off by his energy firm, Scottish Power.

The 47-year-old had since said his vital injections to manage his diabetes were left unusable as the fridge was also affected.

Last night, Mr Kennedy hit back after being offered just £30 in compensation from the energy firm as he said this should not have happened.

Dave Kennedy, from Darlington. Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT (Image: Sarah Caldecott, Newsquest)

He said: "It’s been really stressful. I didn’t dare go to sleep on Wednesday night and now I’ve had to go to work shattered with no sleep."

Explaining what went wrong, Mr Kennedy said that he had agreed to have a smart meter installed last week with £30 being given to him to start the new plan.

After this balance was used up, however, his electricity supply stopped promptimg him to attempt to top it up via the energy firm's app, but to no avail.

As a result, he contacted Scottish Power, only to be told an engineer would be sent to his Darlington home within three hours to have electric restored.

It was not until 24 hours later, however, an engineer came and his electricity was restored.

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He said: “The smart meter's caused these problems. I tried topping it up on the app and I’ve called Scottish Power loads and got hung up on and in the end we’ve been offered £30 in compensation which is not good enough.

“It would be bad enough if I didn’t have health conditions but I’m just not impressed with Scottish power at all, £30 compensation is a bit of a joke.”

Mr Kennedy, who requires CPAP machine at night, was unable to use this machine for the duration of the power outage.

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Explaining that he did not want to smart meter to begin with, he added: “We told them (Scottish Powder) that we wanted a key meter and both times they turned up with a smart meter and as soon as the smart meter was installed, we've had nothing but trouble.” 

A spokesperson for Scottish Power said they were unable to comment on individual cases without an account number when contacted by The Northern Echo.

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