BURY Council is facing having to find a new home for a 45-year-old father who spent £23,000 in a year after his life “fell apart”.

Judges at London’s Court of Appeal rejected a local authority challenge against a decision that he should have been rehoused.

Former fork lift truck driver, John Gibbons, has been the sole carer for his daughter Aimee, now aged 17, since she was very young.

Mr Gibbons began drinking heavily in 2007 after the death of his parents, losing his job, and falling into arrears on his mortgage. He sold his home in Naseby Place, Prestwich, to cover the debt.

He was left with just over £23,000 in his pocket from the sale but, in less than a year, every penny had been spent.

Before selling the family home, Mr Gibbons had not claimed state benefits that might have covered his mortgage payments, nor — once the £23,000 ran out — had he sought housing benefit to help him pay the rent on the flat he and his daughter later moved into.

The council said he had not been obliged to leave his rented flat as no possession order had been granted against him and also claimed he had savings of more than £7,000 at the time.

Mr Gibbons and his daughter ended up in a caravan, but when he presented himself as homeless to Bury Council in September 2008, officials told him that, although he was “in priority need”, he was “intentionally homeless” and not entitled to be re-housed.

That decision was overturned by a Manchester County Court judge in August last year.

Judge Tetlow said the council had wrongly assumed Mr Gibbons had £7,000 in savings — when, in fact, he was penniless — and the failure to grant Mr Gibbons an oral hearing also amounted to a “serious procedural flaw”.

The council challenged Judge Tetlow’s ruling in the Court of Appeal, but had its case thrown out by Lord Justice Jackson, sitting with Lord Justice Sedley and Lord Justice Jacob.

The judge said Mr Gibbons may have been unaware of his right to claim housing benefit and, had he been given “appropriate advice” by council officers, he might have been able to stay in a rented flat at Park View Court, Bury, and escaped homelessness.

The council, he said, had also been wrong not to accede to a request by the Bury Law Centre, which represented Mr Gibbons, for a face-to-face meeting.

The ruling means the council must now carry out a fresh review of Mr Gibbons’ case, as well as having to pay the legal costs. Mr Gibbons was legally aided.

Barrister Lindsay Johnson, for Bury Council, earlier told the Appeal Court the case raised important issues which could effect other homelessness claims up and down the country.