A MAN who suffers from depression is furious after the ‘heartless’ council threatened him with court action while he was dealing with the death of his father.

Adrian Colborne, 63, from Upper Stratton, claims to have undergone a period of harassment by Swindon Borough Council over a routine gas safety check.

Adrian explained that on November 2 a council engineer came to his house to examine his boiler. He informed the engineer that his gas fittings were due to be upgraded in the coming weeks and there was little point in carrying out a check - the engineer agreed and left.

Adrian then claims he received a letter from the council accusing him of having missed his appointment and offering him another one on Tuesday, November 15.

However, on November 14, the day before his next scheduled appointment, he received the devastating news that his father had died.

Adrian said: “I’m sure people can imagine the panic. I just dropped everything and went straight to Devon to help make the arrangements for my father’s funeral.

“I didn’t think about anything else, and I certainly didn’t think about ringing the council and cancelling my appointment.”

Inevitably, he returned home a few days later to find a letter saying he had missed another appointment.

“I phoned the council to explain my situation and they just didn’t seem to care. There was a total lack of compassion.”

He claims he was threatened with court action if he continued to restrict access to his boiler and on November 17 was given the new appointment of Wednesday, November 30.

However, during that time he claims to have been inundated with text messages reminding him not to miss his next appointment.

He said: “While I was in the crematorium I switched my phone off. When I switched it back on afterwards I had yet another text come through.

“I don’t think it’s fair. In the 14 years I have been here I have never once obstructed a council official and I always pay my rent on time.”

However, a spokesman from Swindon Borough Council said: “We are very sorry to hear of Mr Colborne’s loss. Our records show that we were not informed of his bereavement and, had we known, we would have acted very differently.

“The Council takes gas servicing extremely seriously to ensure our tenants and their families are safe in their homes. The text messages Mr Colborne describes were standard reminders that his property was soon due a gas inspection and were sent with no knowledge of his personal circumstances.”

“We will investigate the reasons why Mr Colborne was left on hold for five minutes when he rang us about his appointment and we would like to extend our sympathies to him at this time.”