Hunger striker Barry Horne could have stayed at London's Savoy hotel for six weeks for the same money it cost York NHS Health Trust to put him up for just under four, the Evening Press has learned.

The RSPCA animal home in York

The bill for his 27-day stay at York District Hospital came to £11,000, of which York NHS Health Trust believes it can only recover £1,800.

The Evening Press made some investigations into how else the cash could have been spent, and came up with some interesting alternatives.

A luxury trip on the QE2 for the Millennium would only cost £300 more than Barry's bill, it seems.

For that price you could stay in a deluxe cabin with en suite bathroom, satellite phone link-up and 24-hour room service and travel from Southampton to New York cruising around the Caribbean and stopping off in Miami.

Alternatively, £11,000 could feed a family of four, on a budget of £85 a week, for two and a half years.

Or the money could have been used to foot City of York Council's bill for running the Peasholme hostel, which caters for up to 22 homeless people per night, for three months.

And looking at something close to Mr Horne's heart, £11,000 would have come in handy for the RSPCA animal home, in Clifton.

A member of staff there calculated it could feed and water all the current residents in the centre for two and a half weeks. That covers 80 dogs, 14 puppies, 55 cats, 31 small animals, 18 rabbits and 49 birds.

Mr Horne's bill, made up of a combination of accommodation, security and nursing costs, also included a £98 bill for catering.

Deputy chief executive George Wood said it was by no means clear whether any of the costs could be recovered.

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