34 bodies moved from funeral home by police

[DrJoanAllenby]

This sounds horrendous.

https://news.sky.com/story/man-and-woman-arrested-after-34-bodies-were-moved-by-police-from-funeral-director-13092104?fbclid=IwAR3VpSwxkaCKWvb7U3APBTuMXvq5ZRD-htvvO3VJBPnGQzb6EKD5EobNJ00aemAXCo9AsWsN7prAlQiNwrV8gBXDDnByZQvpSQsusIws3RVyyVhTFVAMWAsEnFe_1bJUk

If they've been flushed with preservatives and cooled within 10 minutes of the heart stopping. They are no good after being sat around in a body that's been dead for hours

Dead organs? That will have already begun to decompose?! (Decomposition begins immediately after death)

Of course they did. And they’d be fine upstanding citizens who’d spot something dodge and call the police at 3am.

I wondered if they had been subcontracted to store bodies by the Coroner but had not been storing them in proper conditions in breech of their contract.

Ha ha.
Companies house do not check ANYTHING
They have been systematically defunded since 2010
as have HMRC - who only care about their cash

To answer a couple of things (as an ex funeral arranger)...

Yes people do rob funeral homes. Some are holding jewellery of the deceased, and some people still like to pay cash. Now, if the funeral home had good practice, the jewellery would be securely locked up in a safe, and any cash would be banked and not held on site, but sadly there will be some that don't have good protocols.

Storage of bodies. One of the branches I worked in had a cold room. It had four storage bays (each had four trays, so 16 deceased in total) and we could hold a few more in coffins in the cold room, so max of about 20 (though could have been more if the room had been bigger). Another branch had fridges rather than a cold room. In that room we could hold 24 deceased in 6 fridges, plus there could be up to 3 deceased in coffins if they'd been embalmed and the funeral was imminent. The funeral home in this article was either storing inappropriately, or they had a huge mortuary/cold room to hold 34 deceased.

In respect of comings and goings at 3am, this would not necessarily be something awful. We would get calls at any time of the day or night and would have team members on call who would be up and out of bed and off to a family to collect the deceased and bring them back to the funeral home. I always felt sorry for the houses closest to our branch as the noise of the metal shutters (at the back of the property where the private ambulance went in) going up and down in the early hours would probably have been annoying in the quiet of the night.

In the case of the funeral home in this article, it could possibly have been a member of the public who saw something, or it could have been a "hire-in" who saw something they were shocked by. It's not uncommon for funeral homes to hire in staff (eg funeral bearers) as needed, rather than keep permanent staff on the payroll.

Companies House is merely a kind of library of documents relating to companies.
do not rely on it to check or enforce anything.
there are multiple cases of fraudulent companies being set up and registered to random addresses.
everyone should check their own address on companies house records from time to time.
it is v difficult and expensive to try to remove a company's details from being linked to your address, despite your never having heard of it, and no one else living at your address.

can cause big problems with credit ratings, bank loans etc.

It is a large city and has been for many years but very poor in many areas.

People are increasingly having non-attended cremations nowadays.

An empty coffin could go to the funeral service

But why would they pay for an empty coffin to be cremated? Make it make sense!

Why the fuss about human ashes though? I'm confused. Undertakers hold ashes there until the family etc are ready to collect them. Could even be months or years sometimes before they're emotionally ready to collect them...

This sounds horrific but I’m still confused over what they actually did? I’ve buried both my parents and my Nan and never paid a “storage” fee?

Also, it’s quite rare that a person would have absolutely no one to view the burial or cremation so they’d have to go through with it anyway. Possibly the odd person leaves no family behind but surely not that many?

Exactly. Burial is part of the funeral fee anyway so they’d still have to pay for the burial even if no one was in the coffin as people/family would be watching

No they're getting more popular, it's cheaper and less hassle, many people don't like the fuss of funerals.

No they're getting more popular, it's cheaper and less hassle, many people don't like the fuss of funerals

wow, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of this- interesting. So where would their money come from? If there’s no funeral then the fee being paid by relatives would be much less surely? Lots of the expense of a funeral is the cars, flowers, etc that’s where they make a lot of their profit

Direct cremation is becoming more popular. My dad died recently and wanted this,which we all agreed with. He hated fuss and funerals. We used a local family company who collected him from the hospital,and took him up be cremated yesterday. We will pick up his ashes from them in his favourite sports car,then then the weather is better,he's going down our fields on the back of his tractor,and having an oak tree planted on top of him,in his memory.
That is the memory that I want of my dad,not seeing him be burnt up in front of my eyes.
The funeral director said that direct cremation is becoming more and more widespread,he was going to have one,as were his parents.

No.

One theory is that this company were subcontracted by an online direct cremation company, who were rubbish at paying. So they didn’t cremate the bodies & just stored them (inappropriately). Then possibly they kept some of the ashes of other deceased to give back under false pretences.

Has anyone else read this Sky News article?

https://news.sky.com/story/funeral-parlour-raid-human-ashes-discovered-and-35-bodies-to-be-identified-13093244

Towards the end of that article, it says "A large number of police have been seen at the
funeral parlour site, including forensics officers dressed in white protective suits and the maritime protection unit."

I Googled 'Maritime Protection Unit' and the MET police website says "As a 24 hours a day, seven days a week frontline policing unit, MPU officers will face many of the same situations as our landside colleagues, such as community based issues, security, and crime and antisocial behaviour. They proactively patrol the river to: detect and prevent crime. maintain public order."

Baffling!

I guess they can do more of them quicker? As they take up less time organising and doing. My dad had it and it was still £1200. So if they do more of those they can make up the money maybe

Sorry for your recent loss.

At what point did you think you would see him burnt up in front of your eyes?

Direct cremation is becoming more popular, 3 out of 30 clients I help have this arrangement in place. They have each paid approx £1800 ish.

We paid £1600 for Dad to have an unattended cremation via a local undertaker. You aren't supposed to know the time and date (so no one tries to attend) but my sister was told by a friend that worked there and that really upset me as I hadn't wanted to know AT ALL. That day ended up being absolutely awful, worse than the day he died.

I would never use one of these companies that advertise on the TV though, and will still use a recommended local independent.