Royal Mail workers have mislaid a 6ft fake corpse.

Searches for the gruesome art exhibit have come to nothing and the latex body remains lost in the postal system.

Bemused artist Dan Baldwin complained to Royal Mail after he was told the dummy he had ordered weeks earlier had disappeared.

The 31-year-old, who has exhibited throughout Europe, planned to use the ghoulish model as part of his latest work, which also features stuffed animals and a severed finger.

He had the male corpse hand-made in the colour of "rotting flesh" by a Las Vegas-based firm called Deviance Designs.

He bought it for more than £200 and paid for it to be shipped to his studio in Hove - but the unusual package never arrived.

Mr Baldwin, who last year had a show at Selfridges in London, said: "I have had a lot of bemused people on the phone trying to explain the situation.

"I spoke to Deviance Designs and they said it had arrived in Britain and was in Customs.

"But Customs insisted it was with Royal Mail.

"Then I phoned Royal Mail and they hadn't a clue what was going on.

"They have said they can only hope it will turn up.

"You hear a lot about the problems with the Post Office but I would have thought they could never lose something as big as this."

Mr Baldwin graduated from the Kent Institute of Art and Design and has been a professional artist for 14 years.

The corpse was to feature in a display also featuring four stuffed wolves.

Mr Baldwin said: "It's quite a big blow to me because it was quite expensive and I have been waiting for months to finish this piece. I am disappointed and frustrated."

A spokeswoman for Royal Mail said: "We are undertaking inquiries to establish if the artwork is in one of our systems and if it is we will look to see where it might be and get it to Mr Baldwin as soon as possible."