TWO men who admitted conspiring to prevent the lawful burial of a baby boy yesterday won the go-ahead to challenge their sentences.

Former funeral directors Mark Eshelby and Graeme Skidmore pleaded guilty at York Crown Court last June to a charge of conspiring to prevent the burial of Benjamin Judson on New Year's Eve 1998.

Eshelby 48, of Londonderry, Northallerton, North Yorkshire, and Skidmore, now 45, of Dunbar, East Lothian, received an 18-month prison sentence suspended for two years and were each fined £5,000.

At the Court of Appeal in London, Lord Justice Hooper, Mr Justice Silber and Mr Justice Underhill gave them both permission to argue at a future hearing that their sentences were manifestly excessive.

During the proceedings they rejected an application on behalf of Skidmore to challenge his conviction.

His plea of guilty at the Crown Court was entered after rejection of argument that the case should be dismissed.

If an appeal had been allowed it would have been argued that the charge he faced represented "an inappropriate extension of the common law".

The Crown Court had heard how Benjamin lived for only 20 minutes after being born prematurely at York Hospital on December 18, 1998.

Eshelby and Skidmore panicked and hid the childs body in the coffin of an elderly woman after realising his funeral cortege had left Co-operative Funeral Services in York, but he was still in the mortuary.

The baby was placed in a coffin with 85-year-old Evelyn Sayner, who was due to be cremated later that day.

The bodies were then cremated and Benjamins parents, Paula and David Judson, visited their son's grave for the next nine years unaware that his coffin was empty.

Sentencing them, Recorder of York Judge Paul Hoffman condemned the men, saying their actions were "abhorrent".

Lord Justice Hooper, granting both men permission to appeal their sentences, said it was arguable that they were "manifestly excessive".