A FUNERAL director has launched a fight for his job - after being sacked for allegedly forgetting to put the body of a baby in a coffin.

The infant's heartbroken parents said their last goodbyes at a funeral service, not realising their tears were for an empty coffin.

After the blunder was discovered, the family, who are from Middlesbrough, had the distress of attending a second funeral - this time with the baby's body in a casket.

Mark Hunt, 44, who has been a funeral director with the North Eastern Co-operative Funeral Service for 20 years, has lodged an appeal.

A source said: "The baby was either stillborn or a few hours old. That is tragic enough.

"The baby weighed so little that nobody realised the coffin was too light. How can you forget to put a body in a coffin? It's not as if it's a trivial part of the job."

The father of two, of Egton Close, Redcar, who is an assistant district Scout commissioner with Redcar and Eston Scouts, declined to comment last night.

He was working from the Co-op's funeral services base, Memorial House, in Linthorpe Road, Middlesbrough.

A spokesman for the Co-op said: "We can confirm there was a very unfortunate error made at our Middlesbrough branch, which resulted in a baby's funeral taking place without the baby being present in the coffin.

"We immediately informed the family with our unreserved apologies and very quickly suspended the employee concerned and subsequently dismissed him."

No date or venue has been arranged to hear the appeal.

But the Co-op spokesman said: "The disciplinary procedure is we would have a management operations person from outside the area to hear the appeal, with support from somebody from our human resources area, to provide advice."

He added: "It will be held as quickly as possible."

The spokesman declined to name the sacked worker, but said the employee had been with the Co-op for "some considerable time".

Mr Hunt is known to be distressed by the episode.

Last year, the dedicated Scout leader cycled 300 miles along the Pennine Way to raise between £5,000 and £8,000 towards equipping a campsite at Ingleby Greenhow and replacing two dilapidated cabins.

He said at the time: "This is to give kids the opportunity to get out and try things out, and hopefully to try to instil respect for other people, to physically and mentally bring them on and improve their self-esteem."

The ride went ahead despite the devastating death of his sister-in-law, Janet Scolley.

The year before, he led a group that raised £2,500 for Scout funds in a sponsored coast-to-coast walk.