Widow upset by letters for husband

5:16am Tuesday 11th March 2008

A widow has told of her devastation at receiving a letter for her late husband with words "passed away died" in the address.

Cynthia Haigh, 66, said she felt "sick" after a car dealership sent mail to "Mr David Haigh, Passed Away Died, Brighouse, West Yorkshire".

Mr Haigh died from a stroke on Christmas Day in 2006.

In the months before his death, he had used the car dealership Polar Ford Huddersfield, to lease a mobility vehicle.

Mrs Haigh's family complained after the first letter landed on her doormat in December. But the car dealership repeated the mistake twice more in February.

"It's like a sick reminder of what you have lost when something like this happens, especially just two weeks before Christmas," said Mrs Haigh, of Rastrick, near Brighouse.

"It made me feel really depressed and awful.

"It's diabolical what they do. They shouldn't be sending out letters like that addressed to anybody."

A spokesman for Polar Ford Huddersfield said Mrs Haigh had been visited twice by company representatives and offered compensation of a meal with her family.

General manager Tony Christmas said: "Polar Ford has become well recognised and respected in the north of England for delivering high levels of customer service so we are appalled that such an error has occurred.

"We are apologising to our customer and are undertaking a thorough check to make sure this doesn't happen again."

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