CHIPPENHAM mother Maureen Lloyd has spoken out about her distress after receiving a letter from the Inland Revenue addressed to her dead son.

Martin Lloyd, 37, died in December 1995 and Mrs Lloyd was distraught to receive the letter from the Inland Revenue office in Chippenham on April 19.

The upset caused by the Inland Revenue's blunder was compounded for Mrs Lloyd because her husband, Desmond, 79, was due to have an operation on the same day.

The letter was a notice of transfer of surplus income tax allowances for the year 2001 to 2002.

"Is my son expected to rise from the grave to sign a document to say he is dead?" said Mrs Lloyd.

"A mother never gets over the death of a son. It's something you live with every day."

She said receiving the letter gave her a real shock.

"I spent some time trying to work out if there was some message behind it, but of course there wasn't," she said.

"I was momentarily stunned."

"As soon as I had recovered I phoned the office and demanded an explanation. Why was my son's file still live after six years?

"My call was passed from one person to another, and the third time I explained what had happened, one lady apologised, but that is not enough."

Mrs Lloyd said she would not be satisfied until she knew how the mistake could have happened.

"A less resilient person would have had a very nasty shock and could have found it hard to deal with," she said.

A spokesman for the Inland Revenue said they could not comment on an individual case.

He said incidents of letters being sent to people who had died were very rare.

"We have millions of customers, and very occasionally something like this happens," he said.

"However when we do learn this has happened, we take full responsibility."

He added that they apologised unreservedly to Mrs Lloyd.

ssingleton@newswilts.co.uk