A son has been reunited with his father after spotting him fleetingly on a televised appeal five years after what he believed was his parent’s cremation.

For years John Delaney had lived on the streets, so it did not come as a shock to his family when a decomposed body fitting his description was found in bushes outside a Manchester hospital in April 2003.

A coroner confirmed the identification of the body as that of the man who had been missing for three years, allowing his family to go ahead with the cremation and wake. The family had declined to view the corpse.

In April this year, as John Renehan, 42, a father of two, prepared to switch off the television, which showed a daytime programme about missing people, he suddenly caught a glimpse of a man who looked just like his father.

Mr Renehan, an engineer from Didsbury, Manchester, said: “I had just finished my night shift and was getting ready to go to sleep when I turned on the television. As I was turning away, I got a glimpse of who I thought was my father.

“For the rest of the day I could not get to sleep. I have always tried to be strong-minded but to see the person we thought we had cremated, my dad, was a shock. I was sure straight away. When I rang the television show, I think they thought I was a nutcase.”

Relations between Mr Renehan and his father had often been strained. After his father took to the streets, either he or his sister would receivecalls from hostels. But they would arrive only to find that he had moved on. When he initially disappeared eight years ago, the family simply assumed that he would turn up again.

It has emerged that Mr Delaney, now 71, had been living in a care home since 2000 after being found wandering round Oldham, Greater Manchester, in a dazed state, with possible brain damage. He had apparently received a blow on his head that had left him with total memory loss.

Mr Delaney, an Irish immigrant who had brought up a family in Manchester, had turned up in a battered and bruised state at the Royal Oldham Hospital on May 6, 2000, but was never connected to an appeal for the man who had disappeared earlier from the Mary and Joseph Hostel in Ancoats.

He was being cared for by Oldham social services and was given the pseudonym “David Harrison” for administrative purposes while his family had reported him missing and police had issued a separate, and equally unsuccessful, public appeal.

Mr Delaney has now been reunited with his son and grandchildren. Mr Renehan aims to spend part of each day with his father, showing him photographs of his family in the hope that his memory will improve. Mr Renehan is hopeful of making progress.

“Something clicked straight away,” he said. “The care worker stayed with us for 20 minutes, then she left and we were alone. We had a little discussion and he was trying to explain a story. I was trying to understand.

“We are getting on really well. He is talking more. I hope he will get better with more contact.”

Mr Renehan admits that he has some sleepless nights worrying about the relatives of the unknown man they cremated. “It plays on my mind,” he said. “I simply do not know how anyone is going to find out who he is.”

Nigel Meadows, the coroner, is preparing to apply to the High Court to quash the original inquest ruling and substitute it for an open verdict. It is unlikely that the real identity of the man found in the grounds of the Manchester Royal Infirmary will be known.

Peter Fahy, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, has apologised for the initial error but said that it was understandable given the constraints then and that there had been no DNA confirmation.

It was well known at the time that Mr Delaney, a problem drinker, frequented the hospital grounds. Both men were said to have been wearing similar clothes and had historic head and rib wounds.

A police spokesman said: “At that time only paper records of people reported missing existed . . . \ accepts mistakes were made and Mr Delaney’s family has been through a traumatic ordeal.”

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