AN elderly woman who was left without electricity for more than 16 hours following a power cut has said she fears for her life in case it happens again.

Bessie Berry, 81, from the Ashton Estate, Darwen, said that when the power went off it was the third time in a year she had been left with no heating or lighting.

And she felt it was not good enough when elderly people were at risk.

She said: "If my son had not taken me to his house I think I could have been dead."

But United Utilities defended its engineers and said the delay was due to the high level of power cuts caused by bad weather. A spokesman said: "There were widespread power cuts on New Year's Eve because of the high winds, wind and snow. We worked as quickly as we could to get people's electricity back on.

"We had had reports of what was going to happen weather-wise so we managed to get as many additional engineers as possible so we could send teams out as quickly as possible.

"This helped, but the scale of the cuts was so large it took time and unfortunately we don't know where the elderly people are. There were also difficulties for the engineers to get to the damage because of the icy roads."

Mrs Berry woke up in the early hours of New Year's Day because she felt cold and she realised her electric blanket had gone off. When she tried the lights, she realised there had been a power cut. She said the power was off for at least 16 hours and has been told to write to United Utilities with her complaint in the hope of getting some compensation. But she said it was those without families to help out that worried her. She said: "There is an old couple up the road who stayed in bed all day because it was warmer, and another lady has a gas oven so she put it on and sat in the kitchen to keep warm.

"There are quite a few elderly residents around here and I think they will all have struggled.

"It is a bad time of year for elderly people to be left without heating for so long. Luckily, my son came for me and took me to his house but it could have been worse.

"This is the third time this has happened. In this day and age you wouldn't expect it to happen once - but three times is ridiculous.

"I'm worried that if it happens again, it could kill us. We could end up with hypothermia in this frosty weather."