When Estena Francis buried her husband Leo all she wanted was the chance to continue her life in peace and dignity.

But her hopes were shattered when she visited his grave with her three grown-up children on Father's Day to find it covered in earth and rubble.

The small wooden cross and flowers she had bought were put to one side of the temporary plot, in Islington Cemetery on East Finchley High Road.

As the children consoled their distraught mother, a cemetery worker informed them that the earth had been heaped on Leo's grave while they dug out an adjoining plot for a burial the next day.

Islington Council, which runs the cemetery, has since restored the grave and apologised. A spokeswoman explained there was nowhere else workers could have piled the earth -- even though there is a large section of empty land behind Leo's grave.

The family, from Finsbury Park, has demanded a free headstone. Estena said: "It is like a dagger going through me. I just buried a man last November and was trying to smooth myself out.

"I went through so much agony last year and to be treated like this now is terrible," she said yesterday. "I hope to God nothing like this ever happens to anybody else."

Son Clifford, 40, said: "I do not accept their apology. What they did was like a desecration. It was the worst Father's Day imaginable."

A spokeswoman for Islington Council said: "We are sorry it happened but the council is within its rights to access temporary graves to facilitate other immediate burials."

She said digging machines could not pile the earth anywhere else because they have limited movement and said there was no chance of providing a free headstone, adding: "With 400 graves being dug every year, what can we do?"

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000.Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.