Just in case you'd forgotten what a downright horrible place London can be:
A woman's remains were found in her bedsit nearly three years after she died, an inquest heard. The TV and heating were still on when housing officials investigating rent arrears found Joyce Vincent's remains in her living room on 25 January. As they forced the door of the flat in Wood Green, north London, they also found stacks of unopened mail, some dating back to February 2003.
They had to use dental records to identify the remains and it turns out that she was in women's refuge accommodation.
Now we know that the systems in place to help women in trouble are under funded and oversubscribed and terribly broken, but this just goes beyond the pale. For a woman in her 40s who seems to have been receiving some kind of aid not to have popped up on someone's radar well before this is unaceptable.
Someone, somewhere simply forgot about Joyce Vincent until her debt became large enough for someone to care about...
