AN INCREASE in the cost of home care services has been labelled as 'Gestapo tactics' by an angry pensioner. Derek Stanley took his 87-year-old disabled mother to a North Somerset Council meeting to protest over increases in the cost from £7 to £7.60 an ho

AN INCREASE in the cost of home care services has been labelled as 'Gestapo tactics' by an angry pensioner.Derek Stanley took his 87-year-old disabled mother to a North Somerset Council meeting to protest over increases in the cost from £7 to £7.60 an hour. His mother, who lives with him, needs one half-hour home care sessions twice a day. To look after his mother Mr Stanley will have to pay an extra 60p per day, adding up to £4.20 a week or £218.40 a year.Mr Stanley, of Castle Hill in Banwell, spoke at a North Somerset financial and scrutiny panel meeting.Mr Stanley said: "My mother was sitting at the meeting in her wheelchair. I wanted to make these people realise what they're doing."It's nothing short of Gestapo tactics and I'm really angry. I am appalled this uncaring council can inflict such large increases on the vulnerable living in our community, the sick, the elderly and the infirm."Is this the method the council proposes to adopt to meet the Government's five per cent capping on council tax?"By targeting the sick and the weak this council is totally lacking in morals and scruples."People said I spoke well but I don't expect anything to come from it. The council listened to what I had to say and it made them think with my mother sitting alongside me."A North Somerset Council spokesman said: "The council's basic hourly rate remains one of the lowest in the region and is below the rate of our neighbouring unitary authorities in the former Avon area."The highest rate in the South West is £14 an hour.