AIBU to question why taxpayers should fund Ian Huntley’s cremation?

[PassingStranger]

Can't Ian Huntleys mother who was at his bedside and in touch with him, pay for his cremation.
Why should the tax payer pay?
He's already cost the taxpayer loads.🤔😫

Will forcing his mother to pay lessen their pain in any way?

You haven’t explained why you think she should be forced to pay. Do you think she should be punished, because she hasn’t suffered as much as his victims and their families? If this is what you think, you should just say it.

He should just be got rid of via something like Pure Cremation which costs less than £1500. If his family wish for anything more elaborate than that then they should pay for it.
A better idea would be to shove him in a sack, weigh him down and ditch piece of shit at sea.

That is incorrect and unlikely because the council won't pay for funerals. They will pay for essential disposal of the body which means they will pay for the body to be cremated in an undisclosed crematorium, at an undisclosed time. While in theory you are right that people could refuse to pay and en-mass that could be problematic, in practice there won't be many people who's loving relatives want them to be cremated alone at an undisclosed time. If some little old person has been so totally abandoned in her old age that her relatives want her body to end like this, I'm not sure that I could begrudge my taxes being spent on her! It won't be nearly as expensive as the cremation you pay for because that will be at a set place and planned time, somewhere set up for you to watch.

I quite agree

Old article but apparently someone losing an ear/finger in an attack would get the same amount. Bonkers system.

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3448813.stm

A better idea would be to shove him in a sack, weigh him down and ditch piece of shit at sea.
How much do you think that would cost? Would you do it for free?

You should have gone to the Co-Op. My husbands direct cremation with them cost £1395 last April.

Gosh I mean who actually cares

I’m guessing there would have to be a wider public discussion about it to find a solution as there are only finite public funds. I suppose it would be interesting to know if the number of these has gone up or down at all.

Exactly this. It's surprising how few people are doing the maths and realising that paying for a £3k funeral is nothing compared to the millions his incarceration cost the taxpayer.

I worked in a psychiatric hospital many years ago ~ if a patient died and there was no family or personal funds to pay for the funeral, the patient was entitled to a state funded funeral (it was known as a Pauper's Funeral ~ I sincerely hope that name has changed!)

Honestly, it was the most basic funeral possible ~ the staff used to have a collection for flowers but the coffin was always the cheapest. It was always dignified, with the hospital chaplain taking the service and staff attending but it always seemed so sad to me

I can't imagine that IH's funeral will consist of anything more than a cheap coffin and a very brief service

I agree that his mother or indeed any other female members of the Huntley family should not have to pay for a basic funeral, which lets face it is more than he deserves.

His brother, who chose to write a book about Huntley and his crimes and presumably benefited from the profits (it was a while ago but I don't remember seeing anything about them going to charity) might be a different matter though.

The equivalent check at the time was a CRB check. Which was introduced after IH got the job. Plus they only checked with the local police and AFAIK his crimes were in a different area. That's why they brought in the national DBS service, so all crimes showed up. Not just national ones.

Has this changed recently because that wasn’t my experience although it has been a few years? The ones I arranged for the council always had a basic ceremony too. We went out of our way to find relatives or find things out about people’s lives for the celebrant. It was sad if only professionals there or we didn’t know so much about them. One of them I went to had loads of people there and people playing music and stuff because it was someone very well known in the homeless community. I find it very sad indeed if we have now moved to undisclosed times and location scenario because most of the folk having these are not Ian Huntley.

It isn't necessarily that they have to be undisclosed, but legally speaking a paupers funeral is essentials only. Which if the council are strict about it, can mean no one notified, no ceremony at all, no one allowed to attend, and not even that the ashes are returned to anyone. It really is essentially a disposal of a body and nothing more. In my experience though, when people pass and there's any public knowledge of it (such as a homeless person died on the streets) funeral directors will offer some basic service for free, or charities will help ensure there's some money put towards it and some people to attend.

And what crime has she supposedly committed that she should be punished?

Mother may well pay for her son's cremation. Its just media hype.

I dont think that's right or fair. She didn't commit his crimes, and I don't think she agreed with what he did.
As mother's we don't know what the limit of loving or contact with our grown up children would ever be.
I have a friend who's son has done terrible, terrible things to her, yet she's still in contact with him. She doesn't think he's a good person, doesn't like him, but cannot turn her back on her child.

And actually, look at the government paying for his cremation, they're saving money in the long run. Keeping a prisoner isn't cheap.

Did you not read the article? He played his oart in Huntley being in the position he was. I remember it in the press and in future safeguarding training.

Pure cremation would lose business if they got involved, let the council,dispose of his body.

Of course he played his part. But you can't blame him for not doing a DBS check when they didn't exist.

Do you know something, I never think about where my taxes go in this kind of detail. As far as I’m concerned, mine are used for roads, schools, and the NHS! I know some people get annoyed about them being used for migrants and things like Huntley’s funeral, but mine aren’t used for those, so I’m happy! 😁

That's kind of what I meant as in a "no-frills" cremation. It certainly shouldn't be funded by the tax-payer and I agree, as you state, no reputable business would want any association with a funeral for that monster!

Because parents are not responsible for the actions of their adult children.

If its not the tax payers, who should pay for it?