A COUPLE have spoken of their devastation after a housing company mistakenly cleaned out their belongings stored in their garage.

Margaret and Michael Punshon’s wedding photographs were among £500 of items binned by Sedgefield Borough Homes (SBH) staff after they forced their way into the garage last month.

It is understood that staff believed the garage, in Gun Way, Newton Aycliffe, was rented by someone else.

It is the second time the housing company has come under fire for emptying a garage in error.

Thousands of pounds worth of goods belonging to pensioners Margaret and Dennis Atkinson, also of Newton Aycliffe, were put on the scrap heap after a mix-up with their address last year.

The then chief executive of SBH, Colin Steel, apologised, and said: “We will take this opportunity to review our procedures to ensure that this does not happen again.”

But now it seems workers have got it wrong again.

Mr Punshon, 51, made the discovery on January 19 when he went to park his car in the garage.

“The locks had been changed and at first I thought it was my grandson,” he said.

The next day, the couple telephoned the housing firm and later opened the garage to find everything had gone.

A toolbox handed down by Mr Punshon’s father, their grandson’s mountain bike and boxes of photographs have all been dumped.

Mrs Punshon, a dinner lady at St Mary’s RCVA Primary School, in the town, says it is a double blow after months spent fighting cancer.

“We weren’t given an explanation,”

she said.

“We were just told it was a mistake and ‘unfortunately these things happen’. You think that your stuff is safe and now I feel as though my privacy has been invaded.

“I just can’t get my head around just why they would just take everything.

“I still can’t believe it.”

The couple called the police who logged the incident as suspicious, but say no crime has taken place.

Mrs Punshon says the housing comany has apologised and assured her an internal investigation was under way.

“We’re absolutely devastated,”

she said. “How can they do this?

“Our grandson saved up his paper round money to buy that mountain bike.”

Mrs Punshon, fighting back tears, said although she may receive compensation, the things thrown away by the housing company were beyond value.

“They have taken everything.

They have taken my life,” she said.

“I feel angry and I don’t want it to happen to other people.

“They promised Mrs Atkinson it wouldn’t happen again and now it has.

“Now, nobody can give me back what I have lost.”

No one at Sedgefield Borough Homes could be contacted yesterday.