Grandmother’s body was ‘left to rot outside fridge for seven weeks’ at funeral parlour

The body of a 78-year-old grandmother was left to decompose at a funeral parlour at the centre of a police investigation for seven weeks, her relatives have claimed.

Susan Stone’s family and friends gathered at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hessle Road, Hull in January for her funeral before mourners were told her body would be taken off for cremation.

But seven weeks later the Stone family, who are from Hull, received a call from Humberside Police informing them that Mrs Stone’s body was still inside the funeral parlour without being refrigerated.

According to reports, the body was too decomposed to the point dental records will be required for formal identification before she can be cremated.

Earlier this week police said 35 bodies had been recovered following a major investigation into reports of “concern for the care of the deceased”.

Mrs Stone’s son Martin said his suspicions were raised at his mother’s funeral where she was laid to rest in a “dented second hand coffin” with a loosely attached name plaque.

He told the Daily Mail he was told to collect the ashes a week or two later but that he hadn’t done so.

Mr Stone, who had been his mother’s carer before she died in hospital in January, said the police notification had a devastating impact on her already grief-stricken 90-year-old husband Eric.

“It’s dramatically affected him – he is really upset and wants to go with my mum.

“I just wanted to get revenge because of what happened to my mum, it’s disgusting,” he said. “I was fuming. Her body had been there for seven weeks. It had just been dumped there and wasn’t even in a freezer.”

A 46-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman were arrested on suspicion of prevention of a lawful and decent burial, fraud by false representation and fraud by abuse of position.

They have been released on bail pending further inquiries.

Review into regulation of funeral directors

It comes after The Telegraph reported on Wednesday that a watchdog warned the Government four years ago that funeral directors should be regulated.

The industry is self-regulated with businesses able to choose whether to join trade bodies which then carry out regular inspections.

However in December 2020, a report published by the Competition and Markets Authority recommended regulation of the sector to monitor “care of the deceased”.

It recommended setting up an inspection body that would review the quality of funeral director services, in particular “back of house” services, such as the mortuary.

The Ministry of Justice last night confirmed a review into the regulation of funeral directors was under way.

A spokesman said:  “In times of great personal loss every family rightly expects their loved ones are treated with dignity and respect and the Government is working with the funeral sector to ensure this is the case.

“We are currently reviewing regulation of the funeral sector and, in the interim, we support the work of the trade bodies who have introduced self-regulation, including codes of practice designed to regulate funeral directors.”