THE North-East father of a soldier killed in Iraq spoke yesterday of his fears as his surviving son awaits a posting to Afghanistan.

John Miller, of Usworth, Washington, Wearside, revealed his family's agony in the midst of a furore sparked by a Home Office pathologist's use of photographs of three dead Military police officers to illustrate a talk to a conference of travel agents.

"We were already on the edge of a precipice following Simon's death, and this has just pushed us over,'' said Mr Miller who, along with his wife Marilyn, has been devastated by what he called the showboating of pictures of the bodies.

The Millers only discovered how Dr Nick Hunt had displayed photographs of the men lying in the mortuary when they demanded all material about their 21-year-old son under the Freedom of Information Act.

Corporal Miller died two years ago along with five other men in an ambush on a police station 120 miles north of Basra, Iraq, where they had been training police officers.

Mr Miller, 54, said: "A parcel of documents arrived last week and it was while going through them that we found out how Dr Hunt had shown the photographs at a the conference in Lincolnshire, in February last year."

Although the faces and genitals of the men were obscured, Mr Miller said he and his wife understood that one of the men shown was their son. He said: "It is a desecration of his memory. Simon was a terribly proud man and we cannot believe that his bullet-ridden body has been displayed for delegates to gawp at.

"We have already gone through so much, and to have to cope with this is a massive body blow."

Although Dr Hunt, who used the pictures to illustrate a talk on the setting-up of mortuaries after disasters, has promised an apology to the families, the Millers are taking legal advice.

Mr Miller said: "We have not yet received his apology and it will mean nothing to us.

"He is an educated man; can he not see what he has done to us?"

The Millers are also facing watching their 26-year-old son, Jon, a Military Police Officer in Germany, take up a posting in Afghanistan.

Mr Miller said: "We are absolutely frightened to death for him, but we are desperately trying not to show him our concern."

The Millers, who are still awaiting an inquest date, said they would never rest until they saw that those who killed their son were brought to justice.