A disabled couple's home was flooded after squatters in the flat upstairs left the taps running.

Wheelchair-bound Jackie Debanks, 33, and her fianc Paul Scarrott, 32, who is partially deaf, were forced out of their home in Leon Close, east Oxford, when water burst through the ceiling at about 1.30am on Sunday.

Miss Debanks said: "There was water everywhere -- it was coming through the ceiling. I was very upset."

Firefighters were called to the scene and turned off the taps. A Red Cross victim support unit also arrived to help the couple find emergency accomm- odation. Mr Scarrott said: "The Red Cross were really good, but the nearest accommodation they could offer us was in Reading."

Matthew Wilcox, a friend who lives in nearby Hughes House, Cowley Road, stepped in to offer the couple temporary accommodation while their flat was repaired.

He said: "Paul knocked on my door at about 2am. I went and had a look at the flat. There was plaster and wallpaper peeling off the ceiling and walls. The carpets were soaked, and the main fuse box was full of water."

Cherwell Housing Association operations director, Mark Hickson, said: "We are in the process of drying the flat out for them. The electrics didn't need repairing but they are being checked."

The couple said they had made repeated complaints to the association about squatters living in the flat upstairs, during the past two months.

Mr Scarrott said: "I'm upset, my girlfriend is upset, and we don't feel safe going back there."

The upstairs flat has now been boarded up and Mr Hickson said the housing association had lost track of the legitimate tenants.

He said: "It has been an unfortunate incident. There wasn't anything we could do other than tidy up afterwards."