A 91-year-old widow has received an apology after she was wrongly sent a letter threatening her with eviction.

Edna Moorhouse, who moved into Derby Place in Thornbury last December, was shocked when she got a letter from North Bradford Community Housing Trust saying she had seven days to pay her supposedly "overdue" rent or face losing her home.

Half of Mrs Moorhouse's rent is paid from Social Security housing benefits and half from the Government's Supporting People Fund.

Her neighbour Ivy Newberry, 71, was also distressed when she too got a letter from the Trust demanding she pay £385 rent arrears she never knew existed.

Her son Stuart was furious when he heard about the letters and took the two women to the housing trust's Ravensliffe office to get an explanation and apology.

Mr Newberry, 42, of Skipton, claimed a housing officer said an out-of-date computer system was to blame for sending out the letters and that other people across the district would also have received them, unaware that the Supporting People Fund - paid by Bradford Council - had not been keeping up its payments share.

Mr Newberry said it was outrageous that the demanding letters were still being sent out to innocent people even though the housing trust was aware they were not at fault for the missed payments.

He said: "Mrs Moorhouse has not been able to sleep because she was so frightened of being thrown out of her home. She has been badly shaken by the experience.

"She first moved into corporation housing when she was 23 and has never owed rent in her life. My mother was also very distressed. It's outrageous that the housing trust doesn't seem to want to do anything about it."

BCHT's Executive Director Tim Doyle admitted there had been a mistake and said: "These tenants have our heartfelt apologies. The letters were automatically generated by our computers and we should have made contact first to explain the problem."

A BCHT spokesman would not reveal how many other letters had been wrongly sent out.

A Council spokesperson said: "We apologise for the delay in processing the payments for these tenants and for any distress that it has caused.

"We are looking into how and why the delays came about and will be working with BCHT to ensure these problems are not repeated."