A homeless woman turned down the offer of council accommodation after discovering the flat had been the scene of a brutal murder.

Lisa Ainscow, 46, who has been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome and obsessive compulsive disorder, became homeless when the flat she was previously renting was sold.

She says she often walks the streets at night accompanied by her elderly mother Wendy, 79, because no suitable accommodation has been found for her.

Wendy, who lives in a nursing home, has spent thousands of pounds of her savings on hotels for Lisa to stay in since her old flat in Saltney, on the England Wales border in Chester, was sold.

Her plight was highlighted by North Wales Live and soon after, Flintshire council offered Lisa a flat in Connah’s Quay, Flintshire, north Wales.

Lisa was thankful for the offer until an anonymous person told her to look into the history of the address.

In May 2017, Merseyside teenager Matthew Cassidy, 19, was stabbed to death in the stairwell of the Connah’s Quay flats in a drug dealing turf war.

His flat has been refurbished but Lisa – who is currently staying in Liverpool – said: ‘I’ve been told the property has new carpets and a new door, but no wonder after what happened there.

‘I don’t want to live in a place where the former tenant was brutally murdered. I just couldn’t cope with it.

‘With my anxiety, I’d be thinking the place was haunted and every noise was a drug dealer coming to the flat.’

Lisa, who said she’s down to her last £10 and is living on chocolate and crisps, said: ‘I just think it’s ridiculous that they expect me to live there.

‘It’s a stupid place to put a vulnerable person. I need somewhere where I can feel safe.

‘I’m glad I was tipped off about the place. I believe it was someone at Flintshire County Council who phoned me anonymously.

‘I just wish someone would help, as I’m barely eating anything and trying to sleep all the time so that I stop thinking about being hungry and the situation I’m in.’

Her mother Wendy said: ‘Flintshire [council] have told me that, if Lisa doesn’t take this house, she won’t be offered anywhere else.

‘But they can’t expect her to go to a flat with such a horrible history. With her anxiety and so on, she just couldn’t live there.

‘They don’t seem to have any empathy at all for the situation she’s in.’

A spokesman for Flintshire County Council said: ‘We are continuing to work closely with Mrs Ainscow and her daughter.’

Last year David Woods, 20, from Liverpool and Leslie Baines, 48, from Deeside, Cheshire, were jailed for 27 and 26 years respectively for the murder of Matthew Cassidy.

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