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?

I was just saying someone will make a film out of this one day.

My Mum’s funeral was handled by the coop last year. They said they only keep ashes for a set period now (I think a year) and then if they’re not collected they scatter them in the garden of remembrance.

I think maybe they were doing those direct cremations were the loved ones didn't have a service and just got the ashes afterwards. So maybe they weren't even booking the cremation slots.

It's bizarre because in the long run it actually costs more to freeze/store the deceased than it would to cremate them

Only you're doing it properly presumably, I don't think anyone is suggesting they had state of the art cold storage facilities for 35 bodies

If the NCA are involved maybe the people running the place had got the idea from Ozark . Money laundering for example or as pp said disposing of bodies for criminals.

I think you only get a small portion of the ashes to keep so maybe they divided 1 person's ashes into many portions

I didn't realise that thw funeral directors don't actually just contact the relatives to let them know that the ashes are ready to be collected. Why don't they? Is it out of respect for not wanting to contact people that are still grieving and maybe not ready to collect them?

My very recent experience, they said they would let us know when they were ready to collect. They didn’t.
I phoned two weeks later, having heard nothing, and they said they did have my loved ones ashes back & they were ready to collect. I then had to speak to them two or three times to pin down when I could pick them up as they have a couple of locations and someone was going to be in my local one, then they weren’t. I felt like I had to hassle them to get the ashes earlier this week. It’s left a horrible feeling tbh and this news story is horrific and has me thinking all sorts. So sad for all the loved ones when losing someone is bad enough.

The article in the sun (grim reading) says they got police divers in as they were used to handling decomposing bodies so I don't think they were stored properly

I think they were doing it properly but prob to save on space, stored the bodies all together instead of individually

Edit: just saw above post

Yes I think this, and then possibly dividing up the ashes of the bodies they did actually cremate to pass to families of those who weren’t actually cremated.

The police have been asking bereaved families about identifying features on their loved ones bodies ie scars and tattoos - that implies that the bodies are still there and in some sort of condition for these things to be identifiable. Grim

When my mum died in the UK her funeral was 5 weeks later.

Most people in the UK, will not be there for the closing of the coffin, and I have never known a viewing like they have in Ireland and currently never the dead person in the house like in Ireland, my daughters were not ready for that when their Granny in Ireland died.

We never viewed my mum when she died.

So it sounds like perhaps the explanation is that the funeral directors had been having financial problems and local crematoriums had stopped accepting coffins from them for cremation due to unpaid bills.

They had a cheaper package where families could hold a funeral service in a room at the funeral parlour and then they would handle a direct cremation afterwards with the crematorium so the families wouldn't see the coffin leaving for cremation.

They split ashes up or gave out any ashes to the families of the deceased so they'd believe their loved one had been cremated.

Then they.....panicked? And had a backlog of bodies but just hoped to work through them once they had the money to send coffins to the crematorium again.

That does make sense to me as an explanation. I sort of hope it is that......just utter incompetence. It is still a despicable thing to do though.

A wake is different in Ireland the coffin is taken by to the house and is sometimes open and family come and see their loved one and then on the day of the funeral the coffin is closed and then off to the church for burial and then to the wake at a pub/home.

I assume that the ashes handed to relatives weren’t human ashes but wood ash etc? No one’s going to pour them out to check, are they? I don’t think they were the ashes of random strangers.
One person apparently purchased a large urn so they could add another lot of ashes in future but had received twice the amount of ashes they expected, so what on earth was going on there?

I’ve recently had my mum cremated by direct cremation, and collected the ashes, and there was a whole trail of paperwork and I knew when and where she was being cremated. I don’t see that, when done properly, that’s any higher risk than a typical uk funeral where you don’t see the body at the actual ceremony- in both circumstances you are basically trusting the funeral director to be honest, but there are some safeguards in that you are also dealing with the crematorium, which is a separate organisation, and there is normally quite a lot of evidence that SOMEONE has been cremated, at least. I can’t imagine how they can have got away with this for some time.

Not all, if any, were "direct" as I read article in DM with photo of daughter kissing her father's coffin at the funeral director's. She's distraught as her brother died not long after and they used the same funeral director. She now doesn't know whose ashes she received.

Ours did when mum died. When dad died a few months later, the undertakers asked if we would like his ashes put with mum's. We handed mum's ashes back to them and they let us know when the combined ashes were ready.

It really is.
You can almost see it on Only Fools and Horses as a way to make money.

The industry should be regulated. - but you can see that there is an opportunity for people to make money in a business that is seen as expensive - and direct cremations are a cheaper option

The family of 35 are better off than others in a way. Their loved ones body has been treated horribly but at least they know where they are now, even if they previously received ashes. Those who have ashes and no body don't know and will never know if the ashes are their loved one. It's heartbreaking.

I thought funeral directors were regulated to some extent. There are two main organisations as far as I can remember. I assume this Hull one wasn't a member..?

It's not common, but I have known one funeral in the UK where the body was brought home for viewing before the funeral and was closed in the presence of the family right before heading to the service. So if happens, but rare I believe.

Another funeral home worker here.
There’s been some incorrect information on this thread - you get all your loved ones ashes back, unless you request the ashes to be split into different containers for various family members to keep. We can arrange that for you by request. If you want ashes into Jewellery or paperweights, we send a tiny portion of the ashes to the company that specialises in this…and you still get the remainder of the ashes back, with the certificate.
With regards to the cremation process itself, it is very stringent. Each deceased is cremated in an individual cremator, and their name stays on a plaque outside the cremator during the whole process. Ashes are not mixed, so you don’t get a strangers ashes.
Someone mentioned this thread - I believe they had services in their own private chapel, then told the families the loved ones would be cremated privately (unattended/direct cremation) except they didn’t book the slot, and pocketed the cremation fee (our local crematorium charges £499 for a direct)
But then they had these surfeit of bodies they needed to get rid of - and that’s when it all fell apart - they clearly hadn’t thought this bit through.
If you need to arrange a funeral, please ensure your funeral director belongs to the NAFD, so will adhere to professional standards and ethics. This outfit weren’t - so were operating unrelated and under the radar. The old adage ‘you get what you pay for’ is unfortunately true in this case I’d bet. Pretty sure they were a lot cheaper than their competitors.

Yes surely?! And also I don't get the "gang burn" theory as that would require someone at the cream being complicit. I remember a thread on here from a couple of years ago, an AMA, which was really interesting and showed how much care was taken and how much respect was shown. Like other PPs, I also thought that the deceased were treated respectfully, and I am sure they are everywhere else, that this is an awful one off!

I think news outlets are deliberately being vague about this to avoid causing upset to the families and because it's a pretty difficult topic.