WHEN Emma Butler gave birth to her first child, she thought it would be the happiest year of her life.

Just eight months later she was living on a sofa and selling her only possessions, just to buy baby milk.

But thanks to the Oxford Mail, she is now receiving the correct benefits and looking forward to moving out of her shared house.

She has spoken out to warn others about the hardships of being a single parent, saying she was let down by the system.

The 23-year-old was studying to become a learning disabilities nurse at Oxford Brookes University in 2010 when she became pregnant.

She gave up the course and planned to return this September, but found out in March that it had been disbanded.

In May, she tried to claim income support of £67 per week for her and eight-month-old Isobelle, but a series of errors left her waiting.

She said: “I have worked ever since I was 16, even while I was at university.

“But in May this year the NHS bursary of £6,000 I had been receiving stopped.

“So as a single, and newly unemployed mum, I put in a claim for income support. I was told I was eligible and should receive a payment within 10 days.”

But due to an error, the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) falsely believed Ms Butler, from Marston Street, Oxford, had received the £6,000 NHS grant.

She said: “When no money arrived, I rang them and discovered they thought I’d had this money.

“I said I hadn’t and provided them with a letter from Brookes saying the course had been disbanded. It was nearly five months and it was awful.

“I already felt bad because I couldn’t go back to university and now we’re living on a sofa in a house with four strangers.”

Miss Butler and her daughter had to live on £60 a week in child tax credits.

They were not eligible for a council house because of rent arrears in the privately rented house she previously lived in. But she said she could not pay off the rent arrears until the money from income support arrived.

She said: “I started to have to sell my possessions to afford baby milk. I rang them up every day to see if anything had changed.”

Fiona Weir, chief executive of the single parents’ charity Gingerbread, said although this was an “extreme” case, it highlighted problems faced by single parents. She said: “Children in single parent families are already twice as likely to live in poverty as those in couple families, and the current economic squeeze is only making life worse.”

Miss Butler is now receiving the correct benefits and aiming to move out soon.

DWP spokesman Daniel Barnes said: “We have contacted Ms Butler to ensure she is receiving all the benefits that she is entitled to.”