Widow's anger at Christmas letter addressed to 'Mr Deceased'

Mrs Derry, whose husband Charlie died on January 2, 2012, said she could never move on fully, but the passing of time has started to make things a little more bearable.

However, when the letter addressed to Mr Deceased came through the letterbox of her Burntwood home she was left distraught.

The letter came from local car dealership, Brindley Motors. It was a Christmas card with a leaflet for a £250 off offer attached.

Mrs Derry said: "I can't believe how this has gone through so many filters and yet somebody still felt it was the right idea to send it out. I just didn't know what to think – it brought back so many memories.

"If it had said Mr Derry I could have handled that, that is an understandable mistake, but why the word deceased? It is just tasteless. I don't know how somebody could be so stupid," she said.

"When I picked up the letter, I just got so upset straight away, then that turned to anger and now I don't know how to feel."

Mrs Derry says that the couple had bought a mobility car just before her husband's death, which she then had to pick up the payments on.

She said she called the company to complain on a Friday, but was told that nobody could speak to her until the Monday, so she decided to go down and talk to somebody face to face.

"I wanted to speak to the manager, I was so angry. When I showed the letter to the girl at the front desk her face just dropped.

"She must have felt so embarrassed, but I wanted an explanation and I wanted an apology."

When she spoke to a senior member of staff, Mrs Derry was informed that she was not alone and that 35 other letters had been sent out. "I was told I should have had an apology letter come through and that everyone who had got one of these letters would have too. The words they used were that this was an unfortunate error

"I don't know if an apology will even help how I feel, but it would be something – some sort of gesture recognising that they had made a mistake."

Brindley Motors' Chris Adams said: "We are deeply upset and we sincerely apologise to all of those who received one of these cards. We have just changed our internal computer system and unfortunately this was an error based on the difficulties of doing that. Everyone affected will be getting a letter of apology from us and we started that process as soon as we were informed of what had happened."

"It must have been distressing to receive the card and again we sincerely apologise."