A RETIRED couple on income support are locked in a legal battle with a firm of North-East solicitors.

Joseph and Christine Watson had their £24,500 home in Commercial Street, Crook, repossessed five years ago after finding they could not sell it because of a row over access.

The couple, who both have arthritis, claim they bought the terraced home after their solicitor, Wager Turner, in Bishop Auckland, told them it had shared access.

But the couple discovered they had no right of way to their back door.

Now the Watsons are in a court battle with Wager Turner's insurer, the Solicitors' Indemnity Fund, which has instructed North-East legal firm Crutes to fight the case.

But solicitors McArdle's, in Darlington, has taken up the Watsons' plight free.

John McArdle, senior partner, said the couple had originally been granted legal aid, but it had been withdrawn after Crutes made representations to the Legal Services Commission.

It means the Watsons, who now live in a rented council flat in Crook, face paying thousands of pounds if they lose the case. They have also failed to have it heard in a small claims court, where solicitors' costs are not awarded.

Said Mr McArdle: "It really is an unpleasant case."

Mrs Watson, 60, said the couple could not afford the mortgage because of her 64-year-old husband's ill health.

"This has affected us terribly," she said. "We've been worrying about it for five years and we have been ill with stress."

A spokesman for Crutes, in Sunderland, said the Watsons' legal aid claim was "wholly without merit and should not continue to receive public funding".

"The decision not to refer to the small claims track was made by order of the court on September 15 on the basis that the claim was unsuitable," he said.

No one was available for comment yesterday at Wager Turner.