A man was left "devastated" after nearly missing his brother's funeral because his taxi didn't turn up.
Shaun Johnson's brother, Mickey, died suddenly on September 9 at the age of just 41, and he had been due to give a eulogy at his funeral.
Shaun, from Nunsthorpe, North East Lincs, had booked a seven-seater taxi via the Links Taxis booking app at 3.25pm on October 6 to take him to Grimsby Crematorium.
The funeral was due to take place at 4.30pm but, 20 minutes before, he was notified that the booking was cancelled, leaving him, his partner, two children and stepdaughter without any transport, GrimsbyLive reports.
Shaun said he was eventually able to book a taxi for 4.30pm but missed his brother's coffin being carried in and had just 10 minutes to deliver the eulogy.
"Mickey passed away on September 9 unexpectedly - he was only 41," he said.
"My dad asked me to deal with everything and arrange his funeral. Mickey was supposed to be my best man at my wedding next year and our agreement was that he would be my best man as long as I did the speeches at do's. With him passing away, a deal is a deal, so I said I'd do the eulogy."
"At approximately 3.25pm I went onto the app and booked a seven-seater for us. I sat there waiting, looking at the app, and it said it was finding me a driver.
"Then all of a sudden, at about 4.10pm, we got a message saying the car was cancelled. So I had 20 minutes to try and get there, but every taxi firm we rang said they didn't have a car in our area. It was a nightmare."
Shaun said they managed to get a four-seater taxi at 4.30pm - but his brother, partner and stepdaughter then missed the entire funeral because his brother had to pick them up to take them to the crematorium.
"I emailed [Links Taxis] the next day to say how disappointed I was in them, and they didn't even acknowledge me," he added.
"They said they tried to ring me over the weekend, but over the weekend is no good. It's just not on, it's not fair. My partner and my brother missed the entire funeral because he had to go and get them. So he missed the speech, he missed everything.
Shaun said he usually "never has a problem" booking taxis via the app and that the events of the day of the funeral left him feeling like "he has let [his brother] down", and has impacted his mental health.
"I was crying, I was stressing, I thought I'd let him down," he said.
"When I got into the funeral I got a load of earache from everyone. I was so angry, I really was. I had all this planned in my head to give him a really good send-off and because my head was scrambled, I said about 10 lines. I didn't even do it properly. I feel like I've let him down and it's affected my mental health.
"I haven't had an apology from them."
A spokesperson from Links Taxis told GrimsbyLive that they attempted to call Shaun to inform him that no seven-seater taxis were available following his booking, but that they were unable to get through.
It said in a statement: "The person booked a taxi through our app and when he booked it, he booked a four-seater plus luggage, which we would automatically send a six-seater taxi to, or something bigger.
"When it dropped into the screen, it was in the middle of our school times and all our six-seaters were on school runs, so the person who was running dispatch tried to call the person twice, but the phone number that was attached to the app is not his new phone number, so we couldn't get through."
The Mirror has contacted Links Taxis for comment.
