RED-FACED council bosses today apologised to 400 pensioners after a benefits bungle left them fearing they would be penniless within weeks.

One 84 year-old victim today told how she was "distraught" to receive a letter warning her benefits could be stopped in four weeks.

Hundreds of pensioners were sent warning letters by Capita, who run Blackburn with Darwen Council's benefits department, telling them they had not renewed their disability and housing benefit claims form and giving notice that all money would be stopped. But in reality they had already returned the forms and had nothing to worry about.

Details of the bungle come at a time when Capita is coming under increasing pressure from the council to improve the benefits service.

Although the service did improve late last year, figures show that just a quarter of renewal claims are being processed on time, compared to a target of 80 per cent and a national average of 80 per cent.

Pensioner Ellen Hogg's daughter Christine drove 250 miles from her Gloucester home to help her take the forms along with several forms of identification to the council offices. But three weeks later she received one of the letters.

Mrs Hogg, who lives in the Roe Lee area of Blackburn, has in the past suffered strokes and asthma. She said: "When I opened the letter I was very, very stressed out. I'm still reeling from it now.

"I think it's absolutely disgusting to treat so many people in this way. I always pay everything and fill in every form on the dot."

She said she and Christine spent a frantic day-and-a-half trying to phone an enquiry line on the letter to put them right about the letter but could not get through.

Another 78-year-old woman, who lives in the Revidge area of Blackburn but asked not to be named, received a letter on Wednesday and spent all of Thursday trying to ring the inquiry line with no success.

She went down to the Town Hall in Blackburn and queued for three hours before an assistant saw her who tore up the letter and apologised for the error.

She said: "When I got the letter I was fuming I couldn't believe it. After queuing for all that time I was even angrier. Things seem to have got a lot worse since Capita took over."

Blackburn with Darwen Council have issued a public apology to the pensioners and asked anyone who received one of the letters by mistake to contact them for reassurance.

Coun Frank Connor, executive member for citizen and consumer affairs at the council, said: "The Council is deeply apologetic for any unnecessary worry and we are taking steps to rectify the situation to make sure it does not happen again."

Terry Boynes, director of the Blackburn Capita Business Centre, said: "It is regrettable that this has happened.

"The new system we have recently installed should mean something like this doesn't happen again. It was a case of human error."

The council has issued a telephone number which claimants who believe they have mistakenly been issued with one of these letters can contact. The number is 0845 - 0701066.