A three-year-old with asthma and his mother spent four nights in their freezing home after engineers broke in and cut off the gas.

Jordan Hilton-Potterton wore a hat and scarf to bed and slept under three duvets while a payment row between his mother Carol Hilton and British Gas was resolved.

The firm had taken out a warrant to enter the council house at Cowley Drive, Woodingdean, and shut off the supply last Thursday over an unpaid £260 gas bill, leaving the family without heating, cooking facilities and hot water.

But Miss Hilton says she had agreed a payment plan with a phone operator and paid half the debt.

The 27-year-old received the bill at the end of November. She telephoned British Gas and said she was unable to pay in full but could pay at least half by the end of the month and the remainder by the end of this month.

Her boyfriend Tristram Bradley, 29, said: "Carol explained the situation to a woman who said it would be fine and she said she would mark it on the computer."

Miss Hilton then sent off half the payment, which was received by British Gas, but was not told by the operator that a bill had to be paid in full or the warrant would be executed.

She received a letter threatening to cut her off but thought she was covered by the verbal agreement. When she returned from collecting Jordan from nursery on Thursday night she found a note from magistrates and British Gas.

Miss Hilton, who works for a travel company in Brighton, called British Gas, who told her they would get Transco to reconnect her as soon as possible. She was reconnected yesterday lunchtime.

The firm said a new card payment meter that engineers had installed would have to be checked.

Miss Hilton said: "It's ridiculous. They were serviced on December 11. They were quick enough to cut me off but not to reconnect me. I'm really disgusted by this."

She had to borrow fan heaters over the weekend and take yesterday off work, unpaid, to wait for an engineer. She spent the weekend eating take-aways and carrying food to friends' homes to cook.

A spokesman for British Gas said a warrant was applied for because she owed £260 and even though Miss Hilton paid half, the bill had to be paid in full for the warrant to be dismissed.

He said: "The person Miss Hilton spoke to did not realise there was a warrant open.

The bill has to be paid in full."

The spokesman said British Gas tried telephoning Miss Hilton four times to warn her of the imminent disconnection but she was not in.

He said: "The problem is that she has an answerphone and because of the Data Protection Act we can't leave a message on that about debt in case someone else lives at the property."

But Miss Hilton said: "They could have just left a message telling me to call them urgently."

Miss Hilton said after she had been reconnected: "I'm absolutely fuming. I tried being reasonable and that didn't work. I shouted and that didn't work either.

"They sent me another bill this morning."