A FAMILY is lucky to be alive after their caravan home's gas fire leaked deadly carbon monoxide fumes.

Vivian McMillan, her daughters Chloe, three, Bethany, seven months, and partner James Shingleston, have been given temporary accommodation after the Bewicke Main Caravan Park at Birtley, near Gateshead, was shut down.

Safety officials discovered that none of the fires in the site's 100 caravans had safety certificates, as required by law.

Site owner Sydney Harker, of Stockton, could face prosecution by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).

Ms McMillan, 21, and her family, who are on benefits, moved into the caravan in February and asked for the fire to be mended. It was repaired, but within weeks the children suffered, coughs, bad chests and severe headaches - some of the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning.

Mr Shingleston, 38, said: "The doctors told me that if we had stayed in the caravan any longer we would have died."

Ms McMillan, who wrote to the HSE about the problem, said they could have been killed "because nobody could be bothered to make it safe".

Gateshead Council environmental health officers and HSE inspectors discovered that the fire had a faulty flue.

Mr Harker has been banned from letting the caravans until the gas system is declared safe.

He said that work was being carried out and the site would re-open in a month.

He said that he was concern-ed about the problem and had never had similar problems in the time he owned the site.