Squatters lock widow out of home

A pensioner was locked out of her £1.5 million home by squatters who caused damage estimated at £100,000.

Milly Martinson, 85, was forced to leave her four-storey town house to look after her sick sister Edna, 75.

But when she returned to her Bayswater home, someone had changed the locks and posted a notice warning visitors to stay away.

Miss Martinson may have to sell the house as she cannot afford to pay the repair bill and she is terrified to return to the home she has lived in for more than 60 years.

She said: "If I can best describe how this affected me, I would just have to say it nearly killed me."

Over Christmas, Latvianborn Miss Martinson moved to Edna's home in Kilburn but returned once a fortnight to collect the post.

On a visit in February, she discovered a squatter. "I asked him who he was and what he was doing in my home," she said. "He told me to look at the notice on the front door. He would not let me in. I broke down and cried."

Police forced their way into the house and arrested three men, but found the interior had been vandalised.

Miss Martinson said: "I have no idea how I am going to pay for the damage. My life has been destroyed."

She had to spend some time in a nursing home to get over the shock. Three men appeared before Horseferry Road magistrates this

week. Matteo Barbarini, 27, of Lambeth Road, Stockwell, Antonio Pompeii, 29, of no fixed abode, and Emmanuel Lamy, 24, of Prince's Square, Bayswater, pleaded guilty to dishonestly abstracting electricity and being found on enclosed premises for an unlawful purpose.

The case was adjourned until it is decided whether to charge them with burglary.