AN Essex man has said he will “never forgive” the M25 protesters after missing his father’s funeral in Pitsea.

Tony Bambury was born and brought up in Thundersley, before moving to Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire.

On October 7, sadly his father passed away, and on Monday he was due to be a pallbearer at his funeral in Pitsea.

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Despite leaving nearly three hours before the services began for what is usually only a 45 minute drive, Tony and his three children didn’t make it.

He told BBC Essex how he was forced to turn around following the M25 and Dartford Tunnel closure due to Just Stop Oil protesters.

After knowing he wouldn't make it in time for the service at 10:30am, Tony then had to call him mum to let her know the heartbreaking news.  

Tony said he will “never, ever forgive this people” after denying him the chance to say a final goodbye to his father.

Speaking to BBC Essex, he said: “I was actually due to be a pallbearer on my father’s coffin along with my son, and we both got that taken away from us.

“There was a sense of ‘how dare they?’

“How dare they have the lack of forethought to say, ‘I’ll tell you what we are going to do, we are going to block these roads and be damned everybody else’

“By doing this, this civil disruption, you don’t raise people to your cause, you actually alienate yourselves on this.

“There is nothing we could have done.

“But someone that I don’t know has taken that ability for me to say farewell to my father away from me, and I actually said a few choice words, as I mentioned on their Twitter page.

“Nothing has come back saying, ‘we are so terribly sorry for what happened’, and if they did, I would tell them to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine because frankly, there is nothing these people can say to make it any better, in my eyes.