A POLICE blunder left a North Yorkshire wife to endure five weeks of "hell" thinking her missing husband could still be alive and well.

But butcher Eric Layfield, 50, whose description was circulated to all forces after he was reported missing from the family home in Harrogate on May 2, had been found drowned on a Cumbrian beach on the same day.

However, North Yorkshire Police failed for more than a month to match his description on their computer's "missing persons" file with that of the dead man, and he was not formally identified until June 6.

And that only came about as a result of a chance remark made in a Harrogate guest house by a holidaymaker from Cumbria.

Yesterday, widow and mother of two sons, Christine Layfield, 51, who was married to her husband for 28 years, said after an apology from the police: "I'm so angry. My family went all over the north of England during those agonising weeks handing out posters in the hope somebody might have seen Eric."

The mystery was only solved as a result of a chance conversation between one of her relatives, Sheila Smith, and a visitor at Sheila's Harrogate guesthouse.

The visitor, who came from Whitehaven, spoke of a body being found on the beach at Fleswick bay in Cumbria in early May. Mrs Smith telephoned police in Harrogate, and within an hour it was confirmed the body was that of Mr Layfield. His funeral took place in Harrogate on Thursday, and an inquest is planned because it is not known how he died.