Trapped by my Mortgage - BBC Panorama
UK Mortgage Prisoners was formed from a Facebook group in 2018 at the time with very few members. Rachel Neale, the now lead campaigner was asked to work with BBC’s Panorama in the production of ‘Trapped By My Mortgage’ which aired on 22nd October 2018. This programme was instrumental in bringing together many of the UK Mortgage Prisoners. For many, the previous 10 years had been spent isolated, and unaware of the sheer scale of the problem. Cat McShane and her crew sought out those affected, and blew the lid off of the sorry tale. What they discovered was a body of people who were suffering, very often alone or isolated, with no idea as to how they could move forward.
Campaigning begins..
As the group grew in numbers, core members began to form active action for campaigning. We called upon support from our MP’s and kept up the pressure of highlighting the need to help the 250,000 mortgage prisoners. For many MP’s it was a situation they knew very little about and had not heard of the devastation and distress that has been caused to individuals and families for such a long period of time.
In February 2019, a group of members were invited to the Jubilee Room in Westminster Hall within the House of Commons to meet with MP’s and other distinguished figures to discuss the Mortgage Prisoner situation. It was an emotional meeting with experiences being shared of the traumatic and damaging effects on people’s lives due to being trapped on high interest rate mortgages. Following shortly from this meeting was the formation of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Mortgage Prisoners.