Gordon Brown apologised for his poor handwriting yesterday and for wrongly spelling the name of a dead soldier in a condolence letter sent to his grieving mother.

Mr Brown issued a statement after being accused of showing disrespect in a handwritten letter. He said that he had apologised to the mother for “any unintended mistake”.

The Prime Minister telephoned Jacqui Janes on Sunday when he learnt of her distress over the message, sent after her son Jamie, aged 20, of the 1st Battalion Grenadier Guards was killed by an explosion in Afghanistan on October 5. It had begun: “Dear Mrs James.” He also appeared to have corrected the name Jamie. Downing Street, which was heavily embarrassed by the episode, declined to give details of internal procedures for checking Mr Brown’s letters.

Last night it emerged that the Prime Minister had a 13-minute telephone conversation with Mrs Janes, during which he explained that he had written the letter because he was concerned about the death of her son.

In a transcript of the conversation, obtained by The Sun, Mrs Janes said: “My sons are fifth-generation infantry. I’m not silly. I have had lots of info from different people who I know from within the Army. I know about Chinooks that, er, were meant to be brought up to the Mark III standards but went wrong so they’re no good.

“I know about the Merlins that have been brought back from Iraq that are still sitting in this country.

“I know of another soldier that sustained the same injuries from an IED that my son sustained and he’s alive. All right limbless, but still alive. My son wasn’t given that opportunity . . .”

Mr Brown replied: “Er I, I . . .”

Mrs Janes said: “The letter that you wrote to me Mr Brown . . .”

Mr Brown said: “Yes”

She said: “I don’t want to sound disrespectful here, but was an insult to my child. There was 25 spelling mistakes, 25!”

Mr Brown replied: “There wasn’t.”

After telling Mr Brown that she found being named Mrs James was disrespectful and hearing the Prime Minister replying that he was “trying to say Janes, as your right name”, she later said that she could not believe she had been “brought down to the level of having an argument with the Prime Minister of my own country”.

Mr Brown replied: “Well I wanted to assure you that everything that I have tried to do is both protect our forces and when, when your son died I wanted to send my respect to you and write a letter that appreciated the service that he had given to the country.”

He went on to praise her son as “a brave, selfless, professional soldier” and added: “Please understand my good intentions and I’m sorry you feel so strongly about, er, about er, the way I wrote the letter but I hope that on reflection you’ll understand that I have the greatest of sympathy for you and I . . .”

Mrs Janes, 47, had complained that she found Mr Brown’s letter “disrespectful” because of the spelling mistake. She told The Sun newspaper: “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.”

Mr Brown arranged to speak to Mrs Janes personally after being alerted to her upset by the newspaper. His spokesman had said earlier: “He has unwillingly, in writing a letter, caused this offence. Of course he is sorry for that. The handwritten letter clearly contains mistakes on the basis that the person who received it has misread those words.”

He said that he expected the Prime Minister to continue writing the letters by hand, but refused to discuss the detailed process for the writing and checking of the messages.

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