A family who claimed they suffered abuse at the hands of their neighbours were dogged by a catalogue of council errors and delays, a watchdog has ruled.

The local government ombudsman has rapped Southwark Council on the knuckles after the family was forced to suffer for months while it waited for officers to re-home them.

Now he has asked Southwark to pay the family, who have still not been re-homed, £1,000 to make up for what happened. The council has already promised to improve its re-homing procedure.

The family, made up of mum, dad, two daughters, a grandson and the mother's 78-year-old father, moved into their home in September 1992.

Initially they got on well with their neighbours.But the good relationship broke down three years later when the daughter alleged to have been verbally abused by a relative of the neighbours.

This escalated into a long-running row, and the family claimed it suffered a "tirade of abuse and harassment".

Their claim was backed by police and a doctor, but the ombudsman has found there were delays registering the application for a transfer and completing a medical assessment.

He said the first transfer application was submitted in September 1995 and should have been registered by January 1996. But it took until June 1996 before this happened.

It should have been made clearer to the family they could not be considered simultaneously for four and five-bedroom homes, so asking for five bedrooms could delay them, he added.

Southwark has told the ombudsman the introduction of a new computer system caused delays and that no suitable properties were available anyway while the family waited to be registered.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.