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Lisa Evans is the human cost of a policy dreamed up far away by people who have never known hardship.

Life is a battle, a struggle against the odds.

But, hard as it is, just one smile from her severely disabled daughter Vicki makes it all worthwhile.

From the crack of dawn until midnight she works to care for her daughter.

The single mother-of-two has looked after Vicki, 26, since an operation left her a spastic quadriplegic at just six months old.

But the hated Bedroom Tax has destroyed her delicate financial and emotional balancing act.

Since April, Lisa, 48, has been paying £35 a week more in council rent and it has pushed her to the point of physical and emotional collapse.

She faced a terrible choice – either find the money or move to a smaller bungalow without any of the specially adapted equipment Vicki needs.

She says: “I guess I had a nervous breakdown. I couldn’t cope.

"The thought of losing my home and everything here to go to a two-bedroom bungalow with nothing to help Vicki was terrible. I was crying all the time with the stress of it.

“In the end I went to the doctor and he gave me anti-depressants.

"Vicki went into emergency respite care for three days and I just went home and lay in bed, sleeping and crying.”

Her eyes filling with tears she sums it up simply: “It was a bad time.”

(Image: Andy Stenning Daily Mirror)

She is just one of thousands suffering under the tax and is disappointed the High Court threw out a legal challenge from 10 victims, ruling that it didn’t discriminate against people with disabilities.

Lisa laughs: “What do they know? It is so unfair against disabled people.”

The tax saw her rent rise from £15 a week to £50. An unmanageable amount for Lisa who, as well as caring for Vicki, works part-time in a chip shop.

She says: “I didn’t have any money to begin with so to take so much away made life hell.

"I couldn’t afford coal for the heating from April, so we were both cold. I had to cut back on food.”

Joining Lisa for her early morning routine at home near Selby, North Yorkshire, it is clear how difficult her life could be without the equipment Vicki needs.

Lisa gets up at 5.30am. The first load of washing goes in and she makes lunch for her daughter, who attends a daycare centre near by.

Meatball spaghetti, trifle, a chocolate bar and strawberries go into her bag – along with a log in which carers and mother meticulously detail Vicki’s activities.

At 6.50am her daughter wakes and Lisa greets her with a cheerful ‘Morning!’ and then retreats to let her come round.

(Image: Andy Stenning Daily Mirror)

Five minutes later, as Vicki plays with an abacus, she gives her a morning “drink” – an injection of fluid through a tube to her stomach, before changing her nappy and washing her.

At 7am carer Tracey Lisle, 50, arrives. Bubbly and cheerful, Vicki smiles and laughs as she is raised by the winch into her wheelchair.

“She is such a lovely girl,” says Tracey. “She is a bundle of fun and never complains. It is wonderful to work with her.”

Tracey feeds her a breakfast of mushed-up Weetabix containing hidden antihistamine and anti-acid pills. Vicki grimaces at the hidden surprise.

Tracey noticed the change in Lisa as the stress of the tax led to depression.

“She is always happy even when she is struggling or tired,” she says. “But she started crying once or twice and she seemed very agitated.”

As her daughter eats her breakfast, Lisa strips the bed in her room, puts on the second wash of the day and finishes packing the bag.

By 8.30am a minibus pulls into the cul-de-sac to take Vicki to daycare and her mum begins the cleaning and then shopping.

(Image: Andy Stenning Daily Mirror)

By 5pm Vicki is home and her mum cooks tea and gives her a bubble bath before bed at 10pm.

Lisa clears up before going to bed herself at midnight, exhausted, ready to begin it all again at 5.30am.

It is a routine Lisa has accepted as normal since Vicki’s operation.

She was born with a hole in her heart, weighing just 4lbs 4oz.

Surgeons had to wait six months, until her weight rose to 6lbs, before she could have surgery.

But fluid on the brain after the procedure left her permanently disabled.

A few years later Lisa split from her partner and father of her older son Carlos, 28.

She has lived in the three-bed semi-detached council house for 17 years, and thanks to grants from the Government and Selby Council, built an extension for Vicki.

The downstairs unit has a wheelchair-access bedroom, with a winch to lift her daughter out of bed, plus a specially adapted bathroom.

A small room next door is for a carer to stay at times of need. Upstairs is Lisa’s bedroom and a small room housing physiotherapy and emergency kit, pads, nappies, sterilised water bottles and tubes.

When the tax was introduced, a Selby Council official called to evaluate the house.

The authority ruled two bedrooms were too small to be classified but the other three were valid, meaning she could be taxed for the room filled with equipment.

The choice was stark – pay up or move from her home – equipped at a cost of £40,000 – to a two-bed bungalow with no hoist, no disabled bathroom and no room to store any of the equipment which makes day-to-day living for mum and daughter tolerable.

(Image: Andy Stenning Daily Mirror)

Outside help could not come in as the bungalow would contravene health and safety regulations.

It would mean she would have to give up her job and move away from her support network of friends and neighbours in the tiny village of Kelfield.

But no matter how hard she argued that the £40,000 spent on the extension would be money down the drain or how much more it would cost to equip a new home, she was met with the same response.

Desperate, she contacted Hands Off Our Homes, a local organisation helping people just like them.

Within three days, the group got a one-year stay of execution, with a rise of just £5.01 a week. Yet in a few months’ time she will have to go through the whole stressful process again.

“I just can’t face it,” she said. “It is so unjust, so unfair. Iain Duncan Smith says it is a success and he could live on benefits. I’d love him to come and live with me for a week and cope with our budget.

“He has no idea, none of them do.”

A spokesman for Selby Council said they could not discuss individual cases but do all they can to support people with special circumstances.

“As part of the new welfare changes, issues such as accommodation for carers are considered.”

They added that council budgets are set annually: “The maximum length of any award is one year.”