A HOUSING group tenant has spoken of their shock after being charged more than £1,100 by direct debit as a result of a " human error".

The tenant, who lives in Fingerpost and asked not to be named, says he found out he had been accidentally charged the amount by the Torus Group just before the Easter weekend.

He said he normally pays a £10 direct debit to the housing group towards arrears but claims a mix-up saw him charged more than 100 times that amount.

"For a company to take the wrong direct debit from tenants, I think it's ridiculous," they said to the Star.

"Many of Helena's tenants are unemployed, it's happened to others too.

"We have to get in touch with our banks to get the money back.

"I had all the weekend over Easter worried because of this, it's ridiculous."

When asked by the Star, a Torus spokesperson admitted there had been an "administration error" which had affected some tenants' charges.

They said: "Due to an administration error on our part, a small number of customers who pay their rent by direct debit were charged twice this month.

" Anyone affected was alerted within 48 hours. We have advised these customers to contact their banks immediately to rectify the situation and will honour any bank charges that may have occurred as a result of this error."

The spokesperson added: "We cannot comment explicitly on individual cases, however the quoted figure of £1,100 was a result of human error and occurred during the direct debit set-up process for the new financial year.

"We have taken steps to ensure that this error is not repeated and would like to apologise to all customers who have been affected."