letter

Work started in 1986, and three previous sections – up to the letter R – have already been issued.

However, the job has proved so slow – the first book was not produced until 1694 and today it takes more than a year to get through a single letter of the alphabet – that the relevance of the enterprise is increasingly in question.

Likewise the third section of the new dictionary – including the letter M – defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, which in France it no longer is.

Mr Edwards, from New Brighton, said the letter made him "very angry", adding: "I'm not going to let this go."

In the letter, he described how, in the wake of Miss Edwards's loss, he has tried to warn future generations of the consequences of gang culture to "make sure Elle's murder was not to be in vain".