A Maldon life-saver injured when he rescued a woman from a blazing building is being refused some of his benefit payments.

David Stubbings, 26, of Hilary Close, severed an artery as he smashed his way from the flat in The Causeway.

He and another man kicked down the woman's bedroom door and found her unconscious on the floor. After helping to revive her, they began to leave the blazing house but then the woman made her way back into the property.

The two men went back in to rescue her, but became trapped and had to smash their way out of the back of the house because the front was engulfed in flames.

A self employed tradesman, Mr Stubbings was unable to work for several weeks. Last week Maldon fire chiefs recommended that Mr Stubbings and another man also involved, should receive a bravery award.

But now the Benefits Agency is refusing to pay for the first 12 days of the claim. They say a claim should have been made earlier - when Mr Stubbings was recovering from surgery in Broomfield Hospital in Chelmsford.

His mother, Mrs Carol Robertson, hit out at the "coldness" of Benefits Agency staff who dealt with the claim.

She said: "My son saved a woman's life. He did not have to go back into that fire. He could have stood back and watched her die and then there would have been no need for him to ask for help."

A spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions said it could not comment on individual cases.

"Claims for Income Support can usually be only backdated in certain cases and every case is looked at individually," he said.

More in the latest Essex Chronicle

Published Friday, March 15, 2002