Kate Winslet has supported a mother of a disabled daughter after they were slapped with a £17,000 energy bill just so they could keep her alive.

The Oscar winning actress said she was “absolutely destroyed” when she heard Carolynne Hunter received the extortionate bill for 12-year-old Freya’s needs.

Freya, the youngest of her four children, has severe complex health conditions, vision loss, is non-verbal and requires full-time oxygen and at-home nursing care.

In an interview with BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuensberg Winslet said Ms Hunter was “going to have to put her child into care because she could not afford her electricity bills” and it “absolutely destroyed” her.

“I thought, on what planet is anyone going to let that happen? This is completely, completely wrong,” added the Titanic star.

“It was just wrong to me that this woman was going to suffer and that she should have been in any way as a mother forced to make such a heart-breaking decision because she simply didn’t have the support and couldn’t pay the bills.

“I just couldn’t let that happen.”

Hunter, 49, from Tillicoultry, Scotland, launched a GoFundMe page to raise money so she could afford to keep her daughter alive.

In August Hunter told PA News agency: “Our families are going to suffer, there’s going to be a mass crisis for the NHS and social care and children will die if their families are not able to pay for it.”

After British GQ photoshopped images of her, Winslet criticised the publication for promoting an unhealthy body image.