Kate Winslet says hearing mother’s £17k energy bill struggles ‘absolutely destroyed’ her – and she had to help | UK News

Kate Winslet has said she is “totally ruined” to hear of a woman who is facing a £17,000 electric bill just to keep her daughter alive and feels she is not. I have no choice but to help.

Carolynne Hunter’s 12-year-old daughter Freya has serious complex health problems and disabilities, is speechless and blind, and requires full-time oxygen and home nursing care.

Ms Hunter, 49, from Tillicoultry, Scotland, launched a GoFundMe appeal last month to help pay for the growing cost of equipment that keeps Freya alive, such as oxygen and pulse monitors her heart.

A few days after the campaign, with a target of £20,000, donation of £17,000 marked “Kate Winslet and family” was paid to the fundraiser, which has been confirmed to come from the actress.

The Titanic star, 47, said she felt she had to do something when she heard Miss Hunter “would have to put her children in care because she couldn’t afford the electricity” and it “completely ruined her”.

“I thought, on what planet would someone let that happen? This is completely, completely wrong,” she told BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg.

“It was wrong to me that this woman would have to suffer and she should have been in every way as a mother forced to make such heartbreaking decisions simply because she couldn’t. have support and cannot pay the bills.

“I just can’t let that happen.”

On her GoFundMe page, Ms Hunter revealed she has ‘no way to reduce’ the energy in her home due to her daughter’s needs and faces a projected annual fuel bill of £17,000 in January. 2023 – up from more than £9,000 in October this year. five.

In August, Ms. Hunter said she dreads the winter months.

“Our families will suffer, there will be a mass crisis for the NHS and social care and children will die if their families can’t afford it,” she told. PA news agency.