London, Nov 27 A Vietnamese man reportedly dug up his wife's corpse and slept besides it for five years as he wanted to hug her in bed.

According to Vietnamnet.vn, Le Van, 55, who is from a small town in the central province of Quang Nam, revealed that after his wife died in 2003 he would sleep on top of her grave.

And when the rain, wind and cold started bothering him 20 months later, he decided to dig a tunnel into the grave "to sleep with her".

But his children found out about it and stopped him from returning to the grave.

So one night in November 2004 he dug up his wife's corpse and took it home, where he used clay to mould her remains into the figure of a woman, and then dressed her up and placed her in his bed.

The father of seven said neighbours did not dare visit the house for several years.

"I'm a person that does things differently. I'm not like normal people," the Telegraph quoted him as saying. (ANI)