A single father and his five children are facing life on the streets after being evicted from their council home, writes Tim Hughes.

Raymond Brooks, 42, fears he and his children aged between one and eight could be made homeless because of a rent dispute.

The former car valeter and his now estranged wife, Caroline Brooks, were forced out of their home in Windy Ridge, Faringdon, by the Vale of White Horse District Council, after claims that Mrs Brooks owed about 2,500 in rent. They were housed in Grove Street, Wantage, but were evicted after a council appeals panel agreed they had made themselves intentionally homeless.

The couple's nine-year marriage broke up, and Mr Brooks and the five children were given 28 days' emergency accommodation in Ridgefield Road, east Oxford.

He was originally ordered to leave by yesterday on the grounds that he had also made himself intentionally homeless, but is now facing an anxious wait to hear the result of another appeal. He said: "I am distraught and don't know what the future holds. I am lying awake at night wondering what I am going to do. I need something stable if not for me, then for my five children. I have lived in the Wantage area all my life, and some of my children go to school here. It was bad enough having to go to Oxford. Now I am very worried.

"It is almost impossible to find private accommodation, but if we can't, we are on the streets."

Paul Staines, head of housing operations at the Vale of White Horse District Council, said a final decision would be made soon. He said: "We have a duty to investigate the circumstances whereby someone finds themselves intentionally homeless. His case will be decided in due course. In exercising its duties the council will be compassionate towards the children. But compassion stretches to all people in housing need. There has to be a balance."