A stonemason is being investigated by trading standards officers after being accused of failing to deliver gravestones.

Lee Fouracres, who traded as Eastbourne Marble and Granite Ltd, faces claims from a number of bereaved families that he let them down.

War veteran Joe Williams told BBC South East Today that Mr Fouracres failed to deliver a memorial to lost Bomber Command airmen at Beachy Head.

Mr Fouracres denied any wrongdoing and said he had hundreds of happy clients.

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Other complainants said the stonemason had failed to deliver promised gravestones for deceased family members.

Ray Fry, 75, told how he paid Mr Fouracres a £1,000 deposit in August 2011 for a headstone after his wife Billie died.

Eight months later, he said the gravestone had still not been erected. Mr Fry died in April 2012.

His daughter Liz Martin said: “It was upsetting. You can’t lay anyone to rest until there’s something solid up. He had plans of what he wanted to do with the gravestone, the area afterwards, and of course he couldn’t do it.

“I think he gave up the will to live to be honest; it didn’t help, he gave up. It didn't kill him, but it certainly didn’t help.”

Mr Fouracres told the BBC: “I’ve done nothing wrong.

“My only fault, as an individual, is perhaps a slight bit of lack of organisation from time to time.

“If that makes me a bad man then so be it. But I am not a crook.”