A BRITISH couple were denied vital financial assistance to get them back on their feet after they spent all their savings on flights home to flee Ebola.

Khalid and Afzal Mahmood left Slough a few years ago to travel before settling in Sierra Leone. However after the Ebola outbreak, and following British Embassy advice to British nationals to leave, they used their savings to fly back to the UK.

The couple, British citizens of 20 and 35 years, were denied assistance with the cost of living when they got back, following new rules which mean new claimants have to be ‘habitually resident’.

It usually means they need to have lived in the country for at least three months.

The pair raised their concerns with Slough MP Fiona Mactaggart at the beginning at October, who took up their case. She claims her letters and calls to the Department for Work and Pensions were ignored. However she raised the issue at Prime Minister’s Questions last week, before she said the DwP allowed to receive some help with the cost of living.

Ms Mactaggart said: “I know this couple cannot be the only British people who have fled Ebola in West Africa and have faced unfair treatment because this Government is so determined to cut the welfare bill. I am glad that at last I have won justice, but it should not have taken the Prime Minister’s intervention to achieve that. Unfortunately the Department for Work and Pensions now treats so many people with disdain and cruelty that they have forgotten that this system is supposed to provide citizens with security. No-one should have to face a choice between being infected by a dangerous disease or not having a roof over their head.”