A man saw his missing father alive on a TV programme, five years after he thought he had cremated him.

John Renehan, from Manchester, England, believed his Irish father, John Delaney, to be long dead after police identified a body they had discovered in 2003.

The family paid for the funeral and went through the full range of emotions as they came to terms with the loss.

But while watching TV last April, the 42-year-old engineer saw a very familiar face flash up on the screen -- his father. Since then, Mr Renehan has enjoyed a remarkable reunion with the man he feared was dead and visits him constantly in a bid to catch up on lost years.

"I just felt a whole range of emotions when I saw him -- shock, confusion," Mr Renehan told the Irish Independent last night. "Obviously, to bury my father five years ago and then to see him on the television, it was a shock. But I've tried to be strong-minded for the sake of my father."

The unravelling of the John Delaney mystery has created as many questions as it has answered. Greater Manchester Police are now tasked with discovering the identity of the body they had mistakenly identified as Mr Delaney.

Mr Delaney (71), who is originally from Portlaoise, Co Laois, was taken into care in 2000 after authorities discovered him wandering the Manchester streets in a dazed and confused state.

It is understood he was suffering from total memory loss and was unable to hold a proper conversation following a blow to the head 10 days earlier.

The only clues to his identity were his Irish accent and his repeated utterances of the words 'Tipperary' and 'boxing' after he was taken into care eight years ago.

He was given the name David Harrison and placed in a home in Oldham -- where he has been living for the past eight years.

Meanwhile, his worried family filed a missing person report at the time of his disappearance and police issued a public appeal with his photograph, but no information was received.

Three years later, police discovered a badly decomposed body in bushes at Manchester Royal Infirmary. They believed the dead man to be the missing Mr Delaney because injury and clothing descriptions matched.

But no family member ever formally identified the body before it was cremated.

Oldham Social Services were unable to put out a further appeal for information because of a legal loophole, until a law- change earlier this year meant Mr Delaney did not have to give consent.

Mr Delaney was finally featured in another appeal, including a story in the Irish Independent which highlighted his Irish accent and apparent Tipperary links.

Mr Delaney was also shown on a daytime television programme about missing persons, which his son was watching.

Mr Renehan contacted authorities immediately and DNA tests confirmed the link -- the pair were reunited two weeks later.

He said: "This is not something that should've happened -- and I've missed out on years with my dad."

Mr Renehan, who took his mother's maiden name after his parents split up, said he was angry that police had not used a more scientific approach in identifying the body.

"I'm not happy with some of the decisions that have been made," he said. "I've still had no proper apology, as such. But I am sure they'll come around."

He said that bad news had been piled upon bad news, but now he could focus on spending time with his long lost father.

"Three months before I thought I was burying my father -- my younger sister died at 36 years of age. And to get a knock on the door and be told 'here's your dead father', when it wasn't even him, wasn't very nice."

Mr Renehen said his father is still suffering from amnesia despite some marked improvements.

"I've spoken to psychologists, care workers and social workers and he definitely still has amnesia," Mr Renehan said.

"I've been in to see him a good few times now. I bring in memorabilia like old photos and things are starting to click.

"But it is going to be a slow process, and eventually, if we continue to show him the positive side of things, hopefully he will respond.

"You can tell there is a lot of tension in him, like he is angry about something. He clenches his fists but when we show him pictures of happier times, they release."

Police in the UK did not keep DNA records of the body they found, which means they have little hope of success in identifying the person that Mr Delaney's family cremated.

Mr Renehan said he still has sleepless nights thinking of the family of the man he had cremated.

"It plays on my mind a lot of times," he said. "I feel sorry for the other family and I don't know how anyone is going to find out who it was."

An application has been made to the high court in England to have the inquest into Mr Delaney's 'death' quashed.