A Nissan worker is claiming he was sacked from his £26,000 job for singing Elvis songs on the day the world remembered the King's death.

Production line worker David Jewers, 37, was suspended after singing along to the stream of tribute songs piped through to employees on the radio.

Weeks later, the married father-of-two, from Gates-head, said he was told never to come back to the Washington plant after working there 11 years.

He is now taking the firm to an employment tribunal alleging unfair dismissal.

Mr Jewers, a part-time crooner on the North-East's nightclub circuit, had only returned to work after battling stress and depression, his father-in-law, Alec McFadden, said yesterday.

In August last year, on the anniversary of Presley's death, Mr Jewers was belting out a string of the star's hits as they played over the airwaves when he claims he was sharply reprimanded.

A supervisor approached him and repeatedly insulted him with a torrent of obscenities, he claimed.

Mr Jewers snapped and confronted the boss, asking him to stop the abuse.

"Ten minutes later he was suspended on full pay - but nothing happened to the supervisor," said Mr McFadden.

"They then proceeded to go through a disciplinary procedure and after 21 days David was sacked for threatening behaviour."

Mr McFadden, a senior TUC official, added: "I think this foreman must have had an obsession against Elvis."

He added that his son-in-law was now struggling to support his wife, Michelle, and their two children Benjamin, two, and Jacob, eight.

Mr Jewers is to face his former employees at an employment tribunal in Newcastle on January 22.

A spokesman for Nissan said it could not comment because of the pending civil action.