Shouldn’t this funeral director be arrested? *MNHQ warning - distressing content*

[MissyB1]

I will post the link (hopefully works). Surely there must be something she could be charged with? And her “business” needs closing down! It’s just beyond words!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gjr0ylenzo

I agree with this and your last paragraph especially.

The only reason for her to have these babies in her own home (in the absence of the parents knowledge) is that it serves a need in her and for that reason, I feel there should be some legal blowback. Isn't there a law against abuse of a corpse?

It sounds like this is getting rugswept when the feelings of the parents should be taken more into consideration than those of the 'funeral director'.

This knocked me sick to my stomach. It sounds like a horror film.

I'm shocked there is no regulation at all. Hopefully this case will lead to tighter regulations being introduced.

Having said that though this woman sounds severely unwell and needs urgent psychiatric care. I don't think she should be arrested but definitely sectioned!

First things first. She isn’t a funeral director.

I have worked with funeral directors dealing with the deaths of babies and very young children, and believe me, their care and compassion is beyond reproach. They go out of their way to work with bereaved parents in a way that supports the parents through those first few awful days and weeks , and in my experience offer sympathetic , professional but personal guidance.

For anyone facing this situation many Childrens Hospices offer support to bereaved parents even when the child has not had involvement with them before. Most will have rooms set up for parents to use, with cool beds for the baby or child, where family and friends can visit until funeral arrangements are finalised, many also offer continue bereavement support.

100%

The dignity of that child has not been taken into consideration by anyone at all.

The fact that it's the first image to hit your eye when you check out her page makes me wonder if she actually .....struggling to think of the term....has ulteror motives?

If Florrie's Army was all about good intentions, I just can't see these images being front and centre. The rest of the site - yes but these? No.

Bruh you’re weird, WTF.

Yeah I wondered wtaf I had read here. This woman belongs in a mental institution to get help.

I read the article and thought 'ugh' then did a double take. This could be seen as caring rather than the very clinical keeping of the body in a cold storage box. It's definitely a cultural thing and some people would be very happy with it. We are a bit too sanitised about death these days.

This is just macabre!

There might not be any laws. But it was not her place to take those babies to her home. The parents did not consent to that. They were not stored in correct conditions either. Interesting that the funeral director she was associated with is not a member of any of the professional bodies associated with the profession.

she is just thick as pig poo but presumably thinks she is doing some good.
i presume she has raised money for the cold cot and is trying to give those babies some kind of weird normality prior to burial
Also she has set up this service in the arse end of Leeds. its one of the most horrific estates and you certainly wouldn't want your dead child spending anytime there. imagine it getting burgled? (a real possibility)

I think it's very, very, VERY obvious from the article that this woman is not keeping people's dead babies in her home watching cartoons with them for any cultural reasons.

She's extremely unwell.

It is really upsetting for the families of the babies and what she did is completely unacceptable, she is obviously very mentally unwell after having her own stillborn baby- grief makes people do stupid, crazy things. This woman doesn’t need punishment of the law, she needs mental health treatment.

The parents cited in the article above were anything but happy though, they were horrified. I honestly think that would apply to most in their situation, if they were aware that their dead babies were posed in a sitting room "watching TV".

This woman clearly has MH issues, perhaps through trauma, but this has highlighted major flaws in the system that will hopefully be addressed

i think theres a bigger picture
her FB tells us more about what she is trying to do. this storing bodies is only a part of the service she offers.

i have some sympathy. i believe she is trying to do a good thing but its not coming across very well

You know exactly what the term means.

😢 poor parents. I can understand taking home the baby if it’s their child. To have two dead babies that aren’t hers in the living room does seem very odd. No wonder the poor parents were traumatised.

As a child, maybe 10, so about 40 years ago, I was taken to see my great aunt in an open coffin in her house and made to kiss her. She used to have me to stay and was a big favourite. I think it was a max of a night or two that bodies were kept at home.

I think there's quite a big gap between sanitising death and putting a dead baby in a bouncer.

She is revered by a lot of deluded women in Leeds. I see her name a lot on local FB groups.

Im from that area and I've never come across her on fb. Do you mean in regards to her group and the baby thing?

Nothing wrong with the expression. It's just an alternative to saying stillborn, as you very well know. Some might find it gentler and easier to hear or say. Personal choice, and why not?

Don't be an arse.

And I think this is the service she is trying to sell. If a parent is too distressed to have the baby at home but equally don’t want to think of the baby alone in a funeral parlour, she is providing that loving family environment for the baby to be in awaiting the funeral. Which may include watching cartoons with the baby and other mundane things.

It does seem what was being offered and the reality haven’t matched up though.

She’s planning children’s funerals for what she wanted for her own baby. But not everyone wants the same. Our local hospital has a bereavement suite with a cool cot for their baby. It’s also separate from the maternity ward so they can’t hear babies cry. Parents can spend up to a week with their baby and have visitors and take their baby for a walk if they wish. But it’s not for everyone not everyone grieves the same. It’s like she’s playing out what she wanted with other people’s children and that’s not ok.

Yes. She's banned from one of the big ones but gets recommended by people

This is all really awful. It's horrendous for the parents involved. The woman running the service sounds traumatised by her own child's stillbirth but that doesn't excuse what she's done.

I'm from a culture where it's very common to keep our dead at home, visible to mourners for a few days leading up to the funeral. So I think it's a good thing to have services that allow the bereaved to see their loved ones in a homely setting rather than clinical setting even though it's no longer the norm in the UK. But it absolutely has to be what the bereaved want and has to be transparent. These poor unsuspecting parents had a terrible shock that only compounded their grief.

Like others on the thread, I'm surprised to learn it's a completely unregulated industry in England and Wales

I imagine her own baby was more 'out of reach' when she lost them.

When mine died (full-term, very traumatic delivery - including uterine rupture and nearly killing me too), I wanted to spend as much time as possible with her.

We were signposted to a funeral service by the bereavement midwife, who I guess were OK, but refused to let us see her when she was in her coffin.

Having arranged the funerals of my dad and brother, I know that it is possible to see the deceased in the funeral homes. I felt robbed of seeing her one last time. I wanted to make sure she was in the coffin.

More pertinently I didn't want to let her go, I don't think there is a parent in the world who thinks there is enough time to say goodbye.

I wonder if the lack of control, lack of being able to say goodbye, wanting to hold on to her child longer - refusal to let go, was projected onto these other babies?

Of course it's not OK at all; I'd have been horrified if I'd walked in and found my daughter propped up in a baby bouncer.

There is a lot of taboo still about child loss/stillbirths, despite it seeming to have a light shone on it in recent years.

I find myself truly hurt - like a knife stabbed in me - when (Americans) tell me I had an abortion...

I never realised that FD's were unregulated.

This woman needs a shit load of MH intervention, she's not truly come to terms with her own loss and is causing harm and distress to other bereaved mothers.