To not understand the Hull funeral directors story?

[GameOfJones]

I've just seen an update to the news story and it sounds absolutely terrible.

35 bodies now identified at the funeral directors, some of whom have relatives that believed they had already been cremated and had been given their ashes. It sounds so upsetting.

What I can't understand is what on Earth was going on? I sort of get they may have been taking the money to cremate bodies then not actually doing so.....but then what the heck were they planning to do with the bodies they had in storage?

And did they take empty coffins to the funerals/cremations? If so, WHY?

Agree. I'm confused by it too. Awful.

I also don't understand it at all

Why keep the bodies surely the storage was more expensive than what they got for actually conducting the services requested?

I don’t understand either. In any funeral I’ve been to the family go to the Crematorium even if it was a church service beforehand. The funeral home would have had to book and pay for a slot.

It must be so upsetting for the families.

It's very strange, very upsetting. I can't imagine what was going on there.

My heart goes out to the families involved.

Having lost my mum I can't even begin to think how these families feel.
I heard some families had jewellery made from ashes.
How upsetting for the families involved.

I’m so confused.

I wonder if they were not cremating people and pocketing the cash, but then cremating several together (pretending it was just one person) to keep disposing of the bodies?

Something has gone terribly terribly wrong here. Are funeral directors not held to any standards? No checks?

Any time you hear of someone working with the dead they always sound so respectful but this is just unthinkable.

I think it's more of a case of them not caring which body got committed. Ie me Brown's funeral, but Mrs green is put in the casket. Or not caring who's ashes they give back.

I've just started working for a local funeral directors, a very reputable family firm. We are scrupulous about care of the body, putting wrist bands and separate name tags with the deceased as soon as they enter the building.

I'd imagine they either got snowed under by sheer volume of work, especially if they were deliberately cheap or just were unscrupulous about looking after the records.

Although I did think one of the BBC on line articles was interesting as a woman who's dad died 2 years ago hadn't "had the ashes back". Yeh, you need to ask for them. There was a radio 4 programme about the trade and I also asked...we have uncollected ashes going back to the 90s

The news was really upsetting. Family members saying they have been talking to their loved ones ashes only to find out they were never cremated at all and were still in the funeral home. One of them said "so who have I been talking to?"

It's just awful but it makes no sense to me at all!

That is really interesting. Can I ask how many bodies your funeral home could store at one time? 35 seems a huge amount to me but admittedly I have no idea what is standard.

I wonder how they were found out. A whistle-blower?

Where my mum was a small local place. He could only have in his words 'a handful'. We are a small village. He once held an open day so people could look round behind the scenes.
35 seems alot to me.

Unfair for all we know they made all sorts of excuses about the ashes

In my experience, funeral directors keep ashes for 10 years, then send you a polite letter asking if you want them, otherwise they will be disposed of. So storing ashes is not at all unusual. Other aspects of this story may be a bit more baffling.

There must be more to it. On the news they said the NCA are now involved, that wouldn't be the case if it was 'just' poor practice

The firm seemed to have financial difficulties - it had had multiple notices that it would be struck off the companies register. So possibly they were boosting their cash flow by taking money for cremations but perhaps not having enough to pay the crematorium fees

From what I can make out, families have been provided with ashes, so I wondered if they were they cremating other bodies for criminal gangs. A bit far fetched I know. But I can't imagine how they have ended up with so many "genuine" bodies uncremated.

There was an interesting programme on Radio 4 on Wednesday evening basically saying it’s a very ‘light’ regulated industry.
The woman being interviewed had been calling for tighter regulations and standards for years to prevent this sort of thing happening.
Perhaps now it might happen!

I am not sure...about 30. Some of the large funeral companies actually use centralised warehouse facilities in each area

looking at the company website there are 4 choices of funeral. The cheaper options offer a service to take place in a room/chapel at the funeral directors premises and then the actual cremation would be sorted by the funeral directors afterwards without family. So it would seem the body/coffin didn't then leave for a cremation as promised and paid for and remained at the funeral directors.

The service was held at the funeral director's premises and the bodies were supposed to go to the crem for cremation, but no service, so much cheaper. Except they weren't taken, they were stockpiled at the funeral directors premises. My hairdresser has an assistant coroner who is a customer and she told him this.

I suspect it might be issues with direct cremation. ie families paying for a simple cremation that no-one attends, no embalming or viewing of the body etc. Creates an opportunity for an unscrupulous funeral provider to take the money for a cremation but not actually get the body cremated. Let's face it they could burn anything and say it's a loved one's ashes.

This ties in with what I read also.

It seems the bodies weren't even cooled correctly, and some of the deceased have had to be identified by dental records and so on.

As an ex-funeral arranger I'm having problems understanding it too. I can't believe they were sending empty coffins to the crematorium as there would have been several people handling each coffin who should have noticed they were too light to be 'occupied'. There would also not have been enough ashes returned after the cremation (some of the ashes are from the coffin but a lot are from the skeleton). Maybe they were doing this and eventually suspicious crem staff opened one - bear in mind a coffin should not be opened once final checks done and it's been sealed. Who knows, all speculation at this point.

I've read one account from am affected client who had her mothers ashes made into jewellery and they've now found the mother's body amongst the deceased they've collected, so goodness knows whose ashes the woman received. The whole thing is so disrespectful and distasteful.

No idea what they thought they'd do with the accumulating bodies. It beggars belief. I hope those poor souls finally get a dignified send off and can rest peacefully.