A Lancaster bomber used to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the Dambusters raid faces being scrapped because its owner’s family cannot afford the death duty owed against it.

Jeremy Hall spent 20 years painstakingly restoring the cockpit section of the aircraft that completed 50 wartime raids as a tribute to the sacrifice of Bomber Command.

As part of his estate, however, it will have to be destroyed on or before his death to avoid his children paying a tax bill of around £60,000.

Mr Hall, 63, from Surrey, discovered the aircraft decaying in a Lincolnshire field in 1977, where it had finally ended up after being discarded by the RAF following the end of the war.