A former Paratrooper has been forced to move into a caravan after squirrels chewed through a water pipe which flooded his Bradford home, causing thousands of pounds of damage.

Eric Stead, 78, was on his first foreign holiday when his daughter Kim Bell had to break the news that his home in Sunnyside Lane, Barker-end, had been wrecked.

A pest controller was called to find and kill the culprits – grey squirrels – but Mr Stead has now had to move to the caravan site in Hull to stay with relatives while his home is repaired.

Mrs Bell, of Ravenscliffe, Bradford, said: “My brother took him away for a ten-day break in Spain and when he came back, I had to tell him that his house had been gutted.

“His water pipe had been chewed through by squirrels.

“It was devastation. The water just came flooding through.”

Mrs Bell had discovered the damage when she went to water the plants at her father’s house with her son, Steven Bell, 31.

Mrs Bell said: “The pipe was in the loft and it had been chewed through so that the water had been coming through the walls and the fittings. The ceiling in his bedroom had collapsed.”

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