'Our family has been destroyed by Daniel's death. To receive a letter like that, that we couldn't read, is totally unacceptable. It's totally illegible.
Mourning: The family of Guardsman Janes watch his coffin leave St Philips Church in Hove, East Sussex, last month. His mother Jacqui was 'disgusted' by Mr Brown's error-strewn letter
Gordon Brown neglected to bow after he laid his wreath at the Cenotaph yesterday (left). Soldier Jamie Janes (right) was killed in Afghanistan last month
Personal apology: Gordon Brown telephoned Jacqui Janes - pictured holding a photo of her son Jamie - after misspelling the soldier's name in a letter of condolence
Guardsmen Jamie Janes with his mother Jacqui
Details have emerged today of a heated late-night phone conversation between Gordon Brown and the mother of a dead soldier who has accused him of 'insulting' her son by spelling his name wrong in a letter of condolence.
Mr Brown was said to have been 'mortified' when told of Jacqui Janes' distress over errors in the hand-written letter, immediately arranging a telephone call to say sorry.
But Mrs Janes, 47, confronted the prime minister in the 13-minute phone call, telling him that her son Jamie could have survived his injuries but bled to death.
'Mr Brown, listen to me,' she said.
'I know every injury my child sustained that day. I know that my son could have survived but my son bled to death.
'How would you like it if one of your children, God forbid, went to a war doing something that he thought, where he was helping protect his Queen and country and because of lack, lack of helicopters, lack of equipment, your child bled to death and then you had the coroner have to tell you his every injury?'
Mr Brown denied troops lacked equipment and said he felt 'very strongly' about the issue.
He added that he understood, but wanted to offer his condolences, rather than interact in a political debate.
At one point in the conversation, Mrs Janes said: 'I can not believe I have been brought down to the level of having an argument with the Prime Minister of my own country.'
Mrs Janes - who claims Mr Brown referred to her as Mrs James - was told by Mr Brown: 'My writing is maybe so bad that you can't read it.'
But she told him: 'I beg to differ', according to a transcript in The Sun newspaper.
Mr Brown added: 'I do not think anyone will believe that I write letters with any intent to cause offence'.
Mrs Janes told the newspaper: 'I was speaking for every serving soldier who is not allowed to speak. I don't know why he called. I felt like he was trying to put me right instead of making me feel better.'
The furore erupted when it was revealed that Mr Brown had addressed the heartbroken mother of Grenadier Guard Janes, killed in an explosion in southern Afghanistan on October 5, as 'Mrs James'.
He also gaffed by appearing to misspell Guardsman Janes's first name as 'James' - then attempting to correct the blunder.
Mrs Janes claimed yesterday that the Prime Minister had 'failed to respect' her brave son's memory and she dismissed the letter as a 'hastily-scrawled insult'.
A second family, of a soldier killed trying to save an injured colleague, also criticised Mr Brown for sending an 'illegible' letter of sympathy.
Alan Simmons, whose stepson Rifleman Daniel Wild, 19, died in Afghanistan in August, said: 'He's just rushed at it. He hasn't even taken the time, the composure, to put together a heartfelt letter.'
The letter, in thick black felt pen, contained a string of other spelling mistakes, including 'greatst' for greatest, 'condolencs' for condolences and 'colleagus' for colleagues.
Mrs Janes, 47, from Portslade, West Sussex, said: 'He couldn't even be bothered to get our family name right.
'That made me so angry. Then I saw he had scribbled out a mistake in Jamie's name.
'The very least I would expect from Gordon Brown is to get his name right. The letter was scrawled so quickly I could hardly even read it and some of the words were half-finished. It's just disrespectful.
'He said "I know words can offer little comfort". When the words are written in such a hurry the letter is littered with more than 20 mistakes, they offer no comfort.'
Mr Brown was said to have been 'mortified' and 'terribly sorry' when told of the devastated mother's anger at the letter.
But Downing Street compounded the damage by initially saying that Mrs Janes had 'misread' and 'misinterpreted' the Prime Minister's words.
His spokesman appeared to apologise for any offence caused, rather than the mistake itself.
Mr Brown, who writes a personal letter to the family of every serviceman and woman killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, rang the Guardsman's mother before issuing a statement apologising for any 'unintended mistake'.
It said: 'Every time I write a letter to mothers and fathers and partners who have suffered bereavement to express my sincere condolences, it is a moment of personal sadness to me.
'I am in awe of the bravery and sacrifice of the men and women of our armed forces. To all other families whom I have written to, I can only apologise if my handwriting is difficult to read.'
Mr Brown's 'unique' near-illegible writing has been blamed on his problems caused by a rugby accident in his youth. He is blind in one eye and his sight in the other is poor.
The question was why no Downing Street official had spotted the mistake and blocked the sending of the letter, or whether it had been checked at all.
But it also emerged that the PM got Guardsman Janes's name wrong in the House of Commons on October 14 when he read out a list of 37 soldiers killed in Afghanistan during MPs' summer recess, and referred to him as 'James'.
Number 10 officials later said the Prime Minister had 'very clearly stumbled' over his words.
Mr Brown's letter of condolence over the death of Rifleman Wild, in a double explosion in Helmand Province, was addressed to his mother Laura Laws, of Easington, Co Durham.
Stepfather Mr Simmons, 55, said: 'Daniel fought and died for Queen and country and yet his prime minister, the man who sent him into battle, appears to be in too much of a hurry to write a proper letter to his family.
'Our family has been destroyed by Daniel's death. To receive a letter like that, that we couldn't read, is totally unacceptable. It's totally illegible.
'Does he actually know there is a war going on and that families are losing loved ones every day?'
However Jacqui Thompson, from Nottingham, whose husband Gary died in a roadside blast in Afghanistan, said a letter from the PM helped her cope with her grief.
Senior Aircraftman Thompson, 51, was caught in an explosion on a routine patrol near Kandahar Airfield on April 13 last year.
His widow said: 'It did help in a way that he took the time out to write the letter, and that was important and it was a very nice letter.'
Last night Labour ministers accused the Sun newspaper - which first published the letter - of deliberately orchestrating a row with the Prime Minister as part of its campaign of support for the Tories.
Ian Austin, a junior communities minister, said of how it used Mrs Janes: 'The Sun has exploited her... to use a tragic issue like this to move its campaign forwards. i do think that sad.'
A 'poll of polls' showed that Gordon Brown's government is less popular than John Major's administration at the same stage before his landslide defeat in 1997.
The last Tory government averaged 30 per cent between the 1996 Conservative conference and the end of October that year.
But the poll of polls for the Independent showed Labour stuck on 28 per cent - 14 points behind the Tories, with the Lib Dems on 18 per cent.
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