Rules and regulations have driven a volunteer from being able to help the homeless in Sutton.

Julia Denyer, from Carshalton, volunteered for Sutton Night Watch but grew increasingly frustrated with what she wasn’t allowed to do.

The organisation helps provide food and equipment for homeless people in Sutton but Julia had wanted to cook her own soup for them.

Julia said: “We are a soup kitchen but all we were giving out was cold pasties and lots of doughnuts but never made any soup.

“I wanted to bring hot soup three times a week but they said we are not allowed to do that.

“We are meant to be a soup kitchen and yet don’t make our own soup. All we were doing is handing out food from Greggs.”

Dean Killick, from Sutton Night Watch, explained the reason why they couldn’t was because of regulations set in place by Environmental Health.

Mr Killick said: “We can’t guarantee that we can keep it at hot temperature so we were told by Environmental Health we cannot produce our own food.

“We can only give it out if they were made in a kitchen that had been passed by Environmental Health which is why Greggs and Sainsbury’s can and we can’t.”

Members of Sutton Night Watch said that, while all the paperwork they were required to fill in to become a registered charity was immense, they felt the regulations were important.

Andy Fulker, a director of Sutton Night Watch, said: “We are dealing with vulnerable people that we know nothing about. We have to follow the rules.

“All the paperwork for the charity has been submitted. Hopefully by the beginning of next year we will be registered. It’s not as easy as she is making it out to be.

“All our staff are volunteers. They are doing these things between their own working hours.”

But for Julia these rules led to her becoming increasingly frustrated at not being allowed to do what she wanted to help the homeless people in Sutton.

After being told multiple times she wasn’t allowed to do the things she was doing, she was eventually asked to leave the organisation.

Julia said: “I would get food from Sainsubury’s that the supermarket couldn’t use. But a big company like that can get into trouble if they give to an organisation that does not have a charity number.”