Tracy [text removed] was threatened with prison, quite illegally, if she didn't pay a credit-card debt of a few hundred pounds. Feeling there was nowhere to turn, she planned an overdose. Tracy's case shows how dangerous consumer credit can be. But is this hazard to our health as individuals now becoming a threat to the wellbeing of the nation?
As the Christmas spending spree reaches its frenzied peak, Richard Lindley reports on a borrowing boom that's left the average British household burdened with a mountain of debt as high as 80 per cent of its income.
Producer SARAH MANWARING WHITE Editor TIM GARDAM