British prime minister Gordon Brown has personally contacted the mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan to assure her that he meant no offence when he spelt her son's name wrong in a letter of condolence, Downing Street said.
Mr Brown telephoned Jacqui Janes after learning of her distress over the hand-written letter, sent after her son Jamie (20), of the 1st Battalion The Grenadier Guards, was killed by an explosion on October 5th, which began "Dear Mrs James".
Now, a Downing Street spokesman said: "As soon as the Prime Minister was told about this he personally contacted the mother to make absolutely clear that he never meant any offence and to underline his deepest sympathy for her, his complete admiration and thanks for the bravery and sacrifice of her son and he said he would do whatever he could to help her at this most difficult of times."
Mrs Janes (47), said she found Mr Brown's letter "disrespectful" because of the spelling mistake.
"He couldn't even be bothered to get our family name right. That made me so angry," she told the Sunnewspaper. "Then I saw he had scribbled out a mistake in Jamie's name. The very least I would expect from Gordon Brown is to get his name right.
"The letter was scrawled so quickly I could hardly even read it and some of the words were half-finished. It's just disrespectful."
A spokesman for No 10 said that the Prime Minister spends a great deal of time writing to bereaved families of fallen soldiers and would never knowingly mis-spell anyone's name. "The Prime Minister takes a great deal of time writing letters of condolences," he said.
PA