A judge in the US state of South Carolina has ordered the closure of a funeral home where an employee cut off the legs of a 6ft 7in (2m) body.

The worker used an electric saw to sever James Hines’s legs at the calf to make his body fit the coffin in 2004.

The owner had contested the revocation of his licence, saying he was absent when the incident happened and pointing to an otherwise unblemished record.

But after a brief hearing, the judge confirmed the business should close.

Earlier this year the owner of the funeral parlour in Allendale admitted that his father, who helped with cleaning and embalming bodies, had sawn off Mr Hines’s legs.

The admission came after a former employee told police about the incident, four years after it happened.

In April South Carolina’s funeral board exhumed the body and found the severed legs in the coffin.

Mr Hines has since been reburied in another coffin.

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