Three lives lost in the gloom of Britain's financial crisis

THREE tragic deaths have thrown into sharp relief the human and psychological cost of Britain's financial crisis. Last week a married couple were found dead in their Warwickshire home after a long struggle with grinding poverty. And this week, an inquest heard how a London solicitor who could no longer afford private school fees for his children threw himself in front of a London Underground train.

Mark and Helen Mullins are understood to have killed themselves after being forced to live off £57.50 a week because of a fruitless 14-month battle to win benefits.

Kervin Julien, from the Salvation Army, said: "This couple were simply allowed to slip through the net with tragic consequences. They just wanted support. This should never have happened."

The couple's poverty was such that they stored their food in plastic bags in a shed because they couldn't afford a fridge and would walk six miles a day to attend a soup kitchen.

Mark, 48, had been a PE instructor in the Army, but had struggled to adapt to life since leaving the military. Helen suffered from learning difficulties and the couple's daughter had been taken into care a year earlier.

The case of the solicitor, Vincent Buffoni, is also linked to worries about money. He had been sending his son to Charterhouse, the top public school that costs up to £30,000 per year, and his daughter to a prep school.

But the 49-year-old's immigration law firm was hit hard by the recession, and he began taking anti-depressants. In an effort to keep up the school fees, he remortgaged his home to the tune of £60,000.

In May this year, Buffoni went to Lambeth North Tube station and jumped in front of a train. At an inquest yesterday, the coroner concluded there was insufficient evidence to record a verdict of suicide and instead decided Buffoni had killed himself while the balance of his mind was disturbed. She said: "Mr Buffoni must have suddenly had some black thoughts."

The London Evening Standard reported earlier this week that attempted suicides on the capital's Tube system had increased dramatically since the beginning of the financial crisis. In 2007, 61 people threw themselves in front of trains, but in 2009, the annual figure had risen to 82.

  ·