Gordon Brown calls up dead soldier's mother to apologise after misspelling condolence letter
Gordon Brown calls up dead soldier's mother to apologise after misspelling condolence letter
Gordon Brown has telephoned the mother of a soldier killed in Afghanistan to apologise for a letter of condolence he sent her which was littered with errors.
The prime minister addressed the mother of 20 year-old Jamie Janes as "Mrs James" and left some words half-finished in his apparent haste. He misspelled the name Jamie, and rather than start the letter again, wrote over it.
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She reacted with fury, accusing Brown of disrespecting the memory of her son.
A Downing Street spokesman said the PM spends "a great deal of time" writing personal condolence letters and would never knowingly misspell a name.
Brown also came under fire this weekend for failing to bow his head as he laid a wreath at the Cenotaph on Remembrance on Sunday.
Mother fumes
Jacqui Janes said Brown's letter is clear evidence of his attitude towards them.
"If he cares that little I don't know why he bothered to write at all," she said.
Jamie joined the Army shortly after his 16th birthday and was on his second tour of Afghanistan when he was killed by a Taliban bomb on October 5.
He was the fifth generation of his family to join the infantry and, according to his mother, was proud to be serving his country and making life better for the people of Afghanistan.
It is standard for Prime Ministers to write to the families of the fallen, and Janes received Brown's letter after others from the Royal family, the Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth and Jamie's regiment.
"They were all written from the heart and made me feel Jamie's death was important to them. Then I got Gordon Brown's. I only got through the first four lines before I threw it across the room in disgust," she told The Sun.
As well as the wrongly-spelt names, the letter contained four other mistakes. Brown wrote greatst for greatest, condolencs for condolences, you instead of your, and colleagus for colleagues.
He failed to dot the letter "i" and wrote security as securiity.
He ended the letter on a repetition, writing "my sincere condolences" and then signing off "Yours sincerely".
"I reread it later. He said, 'I know words can offer little comfort'. When the words are written in such a hurry the letter is littered with more than 20 mistakes, they offer no comfort," Mrs Janes, 47, from Portslade, West Sussex, said.
"It was an insult to Jamie and all the good men and women who have died out there. How low a priority was my son that he could send me that disgraceful, hastily-scrawled insult of a letter?
"He finished by asking if there was any way he could help.
"One thing he can do is never, ever, send a letter out like that to another dead soldier's family. Type it or get someone to check it. And get the name right."
Mistakes
As well as the wrongly-spelt names, the letter contained four other mistakes. Brown wrote greatst for greatest, condolencs for condolences, you instead of your, and colleagus for colleagues.
He failed to dot the letter "i" and wrote security as securiity.
He ended the letter on a repetition, writing "my sincere condolences" and then signing off "Yours sincerely".
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