A MORTUARY worker who was sacked for muddling up two bodies has lost her claim for unfair dismissal.

Dawn Weller, 33, lost her job after embalming the wrong body, a mistake she blamed on her dyslexia.

The blunder was only spotted when the distraught family of 61-year-old Christopher Learnihan arrived at the rest home to bid him farewell - and found a 72-year-old tramp lying in his coffin.

At an industrial tribunal, Ms Weller claimed her employers knew she was dyslexic and other colleagues should have spotted the body mix-up.

At the hearing, at Stratford Employment Tribunal, Ms Weller said she was unable to tell the names of the two bodies apart, and that bosses at Dignity Funerals, who own the mortuary, failed to give her extra support for her dyslexia.

The mix-up happened when two drivers from the funeral home, Alfred English Funeral Directors, of St James Street, Walthamstow, also owned by Dignity, arrived at the hospital to collect the body of Mr Learnihan.

The tribunal heard they were mistakenly given the body of the tramp, Frederick Bates.

Mr Bates was correctly tagged.

The drivers, thinking they had Mr Learnihan's body, put their own identity tag on the tramp with Mr Learnihan's name on it.

He was checked in at the undertaker's mortuary, in Blackhorse Road, Walthamstow, under that name.

Ms Weller then embalmed the body - failing to spot it had two name tags with different names on them.

At the hearing she said: "I repeatedly told my colleagues and everyone knew I was dyslexic, but they did nothing to remove the disadvantages I experienced at work because of my disability."

However, the company's area manager John Laker said that, although Ms Weller's dyslexia was known about, it was not thought that she had a problem with it at work.

"She did not ever raise dyslexia as an issue which caused her difficulty in carrying out her job. I wasn't aware of the severity of it," he said.

Mr Laker said after the hearing: "We are pleased with the outcome of the tribunal which vindicated the actions we had taken towards Ms Weller."

Ms Weller, of Dennis Road, Cambridge, also lost her claim for disability discrimination, although the tribunal said her bosses did not take her dyslexia fully into account.

She had withdrawn her original claim for sex discrimination.

December 11, 2002 15:30