A TEENAGE singer from Bungay has been left devastated after missing out on a chance at stardom - all because her talent show audition letter arrived more than a week too late.

A TEENAGE singer from Bungay has been left devastated after missing out on a chance at stardom - all because her talent show audition letter arrived more than a week too late.

And others across East Anglia have also been left devastated after losing out on their chance of fame.

Beth Woods, 15, of King's Road, Bungay, applied to audition for the next series of popular ITV talent show The X Factor and spent weeks waiting for a confirmation letter to arrive.

But when the letter came through her door last Tuesday morning, she was shocked to discover that her audition date, May 26, had been and gone. The same happened to one of her friends, also from Bungay - and a Halesworth teenager received the same letter, with the same audition date on May 26.

Beth, a Bungay High School student who has had singing lessons for seven years and sings with the Wenhaston girls' choir, said: “I am gutted. My mum comes home every lunch time so I had asked her to send me a text message at school if the letter arrived - for it to come and be too late to go is such a shame.

“I tried to call the helpline number on the letter but it's just an automated voice machine. I'll definitely try again and apply next year, I just hope I get the chance to go.”

Her father Mark Woods said: “She's been waiting for so long for the letter to come through. Every day for the last month she has been watching the post and there was never anything.

“Then it finally came and she was thrilled, only to realise it is too late to go. She was devastated.”

The letter was posted through TNT and a spokesman said that she was not aware of any processing or delivery problems in the area.

A spokesman for the X Factor said: “We send out about 180,000 forms and letters, so it is too difficult to track each individual one.”