THEY care for our deceased loved ones in our most vulnerable moments, but a despicable raft of bad actors are turning Britain’s funeral industry into a horrifying ‘wild west’.
Leaving bodies to rot in stuffy rooms without freezers and, at worst, committing acts of sickening sexual depravity, a Sun investigation can reveal how an astonishing lack of regulation has allowed amateur morticians to abuse the trust of grieving families across the UK.
Ben LackFuneral director Amie Upton has been accused by heartbroken mums of bringing babies home with her[/caption]
BBCGrieving mum Zoe Ward was left ‘screaming’ after she found out her dead son had been taken to Upton’s home[/caption]
Chris EadesThe sickening crimes of perverted monsters like David Fuller, who abused over 100 corpses, have stained the industry[/caption]
Earlier this week, it was revealed that funeral director Amie Upton picked up a dead baby boy from hospital, took him home and put him in a bouncer to “watch cartoons”.
Mum Zoe Ward said she was left “screaming in horror” after finding her dead three-week-old son and the body of another tot in front of the TV in Upton’s living room in Leeds.
A second mum now claims she found her stillborn baby “deteriorated” on Upton’s couch because she wasn’t placed in a cold cot.
Upton, 38, who runs a baby loss charity, has been banned from NHS maternity wards and mortuaries in her home city.
Yet experts claim she is unlikely to ever face criminal charges – because Britain’s funeral industry is completely unregulated.
Our probe today uncovers how the sector has become a practically lawless playground where anyone can set up a funeral business.
Heartbroken families reveal they have been told they can’t view dead relatives because they have been kept in rooms with air conditioning fans instead of cold storage.
Meanwhile, disgusted reputable industry insiders tell us how bodies are driven miles in the back of warm vans and estate cars for cremation, as staff don’t even need to undergo basic criminal checks.
One insider told us: “It’s like the wild west out there. You can have a fridge in your back room at home and call yourself a funeral home.”
Industry bosses have been calling out for regulation for years, but while a new set of rules has been introduced in Scotland, the trade in England is still a “free for all.”
One funeral home boss told us: “We’ve heard stories of staff taking drugs on site, wrong bodies being picked up from hospitals and some businesses with no freezer storage at all – just air conditioning units or fans.
“There’s nothing to protect the public or their deceased. You can store someone in a cupboard or leave them on the floor of your front room and call your house a mortuary.
“Families have come to me in tears after being told their loved ones’ bodies were unviewable, which should, in general, never be the case, unless storage facilities are inadequate.
“We know someone in the industry on drug charges. Basic background checks aren’t even carried out on most staff despite often handling precious jewellery to be placed in coffins.”
Industry trade bosses have been working with the Government to bring in new rules.
They are especially worried about the rise of unattended funerals by firms offering cheap disposal for as little as £1,200.
FacebookCody Townend said her stillborn baby ‘deteriorated’ because she wasn’t put in a cold cot by Upton[/caption]
GettyFurious reputable industry insiders say bad actors have turned it into a ‘wild west’[/caption]
Rachel Bradburne, spokeswoman for the National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD), said: “Many firms advertise online as being a ‘local’ service but very often drive miles to crematoria across the country.
“There’s no requirement for any refrigeration in vehicles or need for a second person to be present, other than the driver.
“Private ambulances can have more than one dead person in the back so a few people could be picked up as they drive around the UK.”
NAFD members must be inspected, have traded for at least six months, clearly display prices and have access to refrigerated storage.
But it is believed that around 10 per cent of funeral firms in Britain operate without a trade body membership.
Sick necrophiliacs
PASick David Fuller sexually assaulted 101 corpses[/caption]
Ben LackNigel Robinson-Wright was caught with photos of corpses[/caption]
Grieving families have told us they were left devastated in a series of blunders by funeral homes, with one claiming: “My pet dog was treated more humanely when she passed than my 99-year-old grandmother.”
There are also fears over just how safe dead relatives are from sexual predators.
Last month an inquiry warned that the sickening crimes of morgue rapist David Fuller could be repeated unless bodies are better cared for.
Fuller, 68, was jailed for life in 2021 for beating and strangling Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, to death before sexually assaulting them in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, in 1987.
He was also given 12 years for sexually assaulting 101 female corpses while working as a maintenance engineer at NHS hospitals.
The inquiry, chaired by Sir Jonathan Michael, found that better management and security at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust in Kent could have stopped Fuller.
Sir Jonathan called the industry an “unregulated free-for-all” after the review highlighted incidents of a funeral assistant taking pictures of a person being embalmed, people being left to decompose or covered in mouldy sheets, and the sexual assault of a dead woman by a funeral director in the 1990s.
PACCTV issued by Kent Police of Fuller being questioned[/caption]
PAFuller was jailed for life in 2021 for beating and strangling Wendy Knell, 25, and Caroline Pierce, 20, to death[/caption]
Warning the system was flawed, he said lack of regulation meant anyone could set themselves up as a funeral director, work at home and keep bodies in their garages if they wanted to.
The review found that just six per cent of funeral home bosses put locks on fridges – and there is confusion about which staff need to have criminal background checks.
Fuller is not the only perverted beast to abuse the system.
Blackpool undertaker Neil Robinson-Wright was jailed for 25 years in 2022 after posing next to open coffins and naked corpses.
The 45-year-old also offered to supply a man with crystal meth to facilitate sexual activity in a chapel of rest.
In 2019, twisted pervert Kasim Shazada Khurum, 23, was jailed for six years after forcing his way into a Co-op funeral home in Birmingham where he had sex with a corpse.
Rotting bodies
But this week, Amie Upton’s treatment of babies has thrown the whole industry back into the spotlight.
Upton is unlikely to face charges despite keeping bodies at her home.
Mum Zoe Ward, 32, was left horrified after trusting Upton with her baby boy Bleu, who died of brain damage at three weeks old.
She contacted Upton’s charity Florrie’s Army to arrange the funeral, believing her son would be kept in a “professional setting” until the service.
She was “terrified” to see Upton “watching cartoons” with her son’s body next to her in the living room in a baby bouncer, and another baby’s body on the sofa.
Zoe told the BBC: “I realised it was Bleu and Upton says: ‘Come in, we’re watching PJ Masks.
“There’s a cat scratcher in the corner and I can hear a dog barking and there was another (dead) baby on the sofa.
SWNS:South West News ServicePervert Kasim Shazada Khurum was jailed for having sex with a corpse[/caption]
SWNS:South West News ServiceThe Co-operative funeral care in Birmingham where Khurum committed his vile crime[/caption]
“I rang my mum and I’m saying, ‘This ain’t right’…I was screaming down the phone (saying): “It’s mucky, it’s dirty, he can’t stay here.”
A second mum, Cody Townend said she also found her stillborn baby Macie-Mae lying on Upton’s sofa after giving birth in January this year.
She wrote on Facebook: “She (Upton) didn’t store her in a cold cot and she deteriorated. I couldn’t see my first and only baby that way, that’s not how I wanted to remember her.”
However, an industry source tells us Upton has done nothing illegal.
They said: “She’s committed no crime because she is a funeral director and is allowed to touch or move the body. So long as she’s not desecrated it or done anything to prevent an unlawful burial, there’s nothing that can be done.”
Upton was not a member of the National Association of Funeral Directors or Britain’s other industry watchdog, the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors.
It’s estimated that up to 1,750 funeral businesses are not a member of any trade group.
Devastated families
Families across the country have told The Sun how they were left devastated by uncaring funeral home bosses.
The list of complaints include a grandfather buried in the wrong coffin, a celebrant who turned up in shorts and flip-flops for a family meeting and a funeral director who got the dead relative’s name wrong.
One woman in Milton Keynes told how her 75-year-old grandfather was placed in the wrong coffin during a Covid burial.
She said: “Grandad was put in a much cheaper coffin and there was no engraving on the side we requested.
“The guys carrying the coffin almost dropped it and weren’t even dressed in suits.
“We just didn’t feel he got the funeral he deserved.”
Another grieving woman told us how her partner, who died of cancer aged 57 in March this year, was collected by a direct-to-crematorium service – and she was charged an extra £300 because it was a Sunday.
An upset granddaughter, who lives near Southampton, told us how the funeral home even got her 99-year-old grandmother’s name wrong.
She said: “The celebrant arranged by the firm we used turned up in shorts, flip-flops and a T-shirt, looking like he’d been surfing on Newquay beach.
“They got my grandmother’s name wrong at one point, jumbled up the kids with the grandchildren and how many kids she had.
“It all just felt a bit slapdash. My dad and aunt organised the funeral together, but the woman meant to be arranging it all would only speak to my aunt because she had probate.
“My dog recently died and I felt like it had better send-off than my grandmother.”
Declan Maguire, spokesperson for the National Society of Allied and Independent Funeral Directors, said: “What’s needed is a legal backstop – we are ready for regulation.
“You should not be able to collect a deceased from anywhere unless you have a licence.”
Morgue monster’s horrific crimes
By Sam Blanchard, Health Correspondent
MORGUE monster David Fuller was free to assault dead women for 15 years due to “serious failings” at the hospitals where he worked, a report found.
The double killer abused at least 101 women while working at mortuaries in Tunbridge Wells Hospital and at the former Kent and Sussex Hospital.
A probe found there were “missed opportunities” to stop the necrophiliac’s 15-year rampage.
His youngest victim was a nine-year-old girl and the oldest was 100 years old, with Fuller sometimes violating the bodies more than once.
Inquiry chairman Sir Jonathan Michael said: “Failures of management, of governance, of regulation, failure to follow standard policies and procedures, together with a persistent lack of curiosity, all contributed to the creation of the environment in which he was able to offend, and to do so for 15 years without ever being suspected or caught.
“Over the years, there were missed opportunities to question Fuller’s working practices.
“Had his colleagues, managers and senior leaders been more curious, it is likely that he would have had less opportunity to offend.”
Fuller also became known as the ‘bedsit killer’ after murdering two women.
His first murder victim was 25-year-old Wendy Knell, the manager of a SupaSnaps store in Tunbridge Wells, Kent, where he took photographs to be developed.
Her boyfriend found her naked body in the blood-stained bed of her bedsit in June 1987. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled.
Five months after killing Wendy, Fuller abducted Caroline Pierce, 20, outside her bedsit home. She was a waitress at Buster Brown’s restaurant, which he had visited.
Her body, naked apart from a pair of tights, was discovered by a farm worker in a flooded drain 40 miles away in Romney.
It was 30 years before cops caught up with Fuller after advancements in forensic technology.
The Government is due to overhaul the industry following the Fuller Inquiry.
A spokesperson said “thoughts remained with the grieving families” of those involved in the Leeds baby scandal, adding: “They rightly expected their children to be treated with dignity and respect.”
They said: “We are committed to taking action to ensure the highest standards are always met by funeral directors and are now considering the full range of options to improve standards.”
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