A MORECAMBE man has been issued with a summons over unpaid council tax - four months after his death.

The man's son wrote to Lancaster City Council shortly after his father's died in April, and a letter from the council addressed to the executors of the man's will was also received.

The council has sincerely apologised for the mistake, which, it says, followed a clerical error.

It has admitted receiving notice that the man had died.

However while the son, who has asked that his father is not named in order to prevent further trauma to his friends and family, worked in Germany, reminder letters were still being sent, addressed to his late father, demanding instalments on the tax bill.

Most recently, a letter has been sent demanding that the man appears before magistrates in Lancaster accused of not paying his council tax.

The man wrote last week: "Can anyone recommend a good solicitor, who also has a religious qualification and is therefore able to communicate directly with that higher court which now controls the destiny of my father, in order to arrange parole so that he can appear at the Magistrate's Court, explain why he cannot pay and then, perhaps, the Chief Revenue Officer will truly believe that my father is no longer interested in council, or any other, tax?"

He adds: "I seem to remember a Monty Python sketch about a parrot.

I wonder where the inspiration for that came from?"

A council spokesman said: "We did receive information in April when he died.

Unfortunately, there was a clerical error and this meant that normal procedures were not followed.

"The council is in correspondence with this gentleman's son and we can only express our sincere apologies for any distress this may have caused."