A BLACKBURN family have had fire doors fitted in their house free after their son destroyed the original ones.

Reece Greaves, 17, suffers from severe autism and extreme sensory processing disorder, meaning he struggles with loud noises and is over-sensitive to his environment.

His mum, Donna Elliott, said he becomes very aggressive when he’s overwhelmed, and over the last year, he has kicked in all 12 internal doors in their home.

Miss Elliott said: “Reece destroys anything in his path and he’s smashed through all of the doors in the house because he gets angry.

“He’s over-sensitive to a lot of things which means we can’t do things like turn the heating on because the noise of the boiler hurts him. We can’t even flush the toilet.

“We’ve been without doors in the house for about a year now because the housing association told us it would cost £144 to replace each door and we just can’t afford that. We can’t turn the heating on, so the house is constantly cold.”

Earlier this year, the family got in touch with a community interest company based in Blackburn, Personalising Freedom, run by Liz Crook.

The company offers support for families like Reece’s.

Ms Crook said: “We bought fire doors from a local business who delivered the doors free and hired a local handyman to fit the doors.”

Personalising Freedom is a non-profit company that reinvests back into the community and Ms Crook said this was a good example of how they could help.

Miss Elliott said: “The upstairs doors were fitted last week and last Thursday we had three of the downstairs doors fitted too. The rest will go on next week.

“We’re so grateful for the help Liz and Personalising Freedom have given us as without them we would be facing a cold winter.”