by Alex Claridge

A pregnant woman bought a jar of gherkins from Canterbury's Morrisons store and found one of them was full of maggots.

Melody Wakelin had eaten around three-quarters of the gherkin when she realised there were around 20 dead maggots inside it.

The sickened 30-year-old has now taken the jar and the gherkin back to the store in Wincheap where she bought them on December 4 and launched a formal complaint against the firm.

Melody was at home in Taylors Yard, Wye, feeding her 18-month-old son Wentworth when she realised something was amiss.

She had eaten most of one of the gherkins when she spotted the pickled dead maggots inside the remains.

"It was absolutely disgusting," Melody said. "I've been having nightmares about this and I believe Morrisons should do the right thing and properly compensate me.

"I've shopped at Morrisons for four years, but I won't shop there again as a result of this - I'll go to Tesco or Asda instead."

Melody took the affected gherkin and the rest of the jar back to the store to allow the company to investigate how the maggots came to be inside.

"Both my husband Jack and I were absolutely repulsed by these gherkins and I'll never ever eat another gherkin again," added Melody, who is seven months pregnant.

"These gherkins also made me really ill for about three days. I had a really upset stomach."

Morrisons has apologised to Melody and says it has offered her a refund plus gift vouchers.

Spokesman George Kotschy said: "All of the products sold in our stores go through a rigorous quality checking process to ensure they meet the high standards our customers expect.

"The jar of gherkins in question was provided to us by a third-party supplier and we are investigating the matter further. We have apologised to Ms Wakelin and have offered her both a full refund and gift vouchers."

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