A widow who requested her husband’s ashes to be made into jewellery was shocked when police informed her that his body was still in a freezer, months after he was supposedly cremated.
Police are currently trying to identify the 35 bodies they found at Legacy Independent Funeral Directors in Hull, East Yorkshire, during a raid last week due to “concerns for the care of the deceased”. An unnamed grieving woman was allegedly told she would need to identify her late partner’s body eight months later.
The man’s daughter and granddaughter, who have also been wearing jewellery they believed contained his “ashes”, are now shocked upon learning it may not even be their loved one. A family friend said the police told the widow her husband could only have been frozen “under the direction of the coroner”.
Police cordons are still up at the company’s branches on Hessle Road and Anlaby Road in Hull, and in Beverley. A 46-year-old man and a 23-year-old woman have been arrested in connection with the investigation and have since been released on bail, according to the police.
A friend of the widow spoke to The Times, sharing the family’s pain: “The widow is distraught. The family thought they had his remains, and are now asking ‘if it’s not him, then who is it? ‘ They are now grieving again, they have lost that closure that a funeral gives you. His widow has now been told by the police that she will have to go and identify the body of her dead husband imagine that! “.
Humberside Police said a “quantity of what we suspect to be human ashes” was also removed from the Hessle Road site. Assistant Chief Constable McLoughlin from Humberside Police asked anyone concerned about their loved ones’ care to speak up.
He said in a press meeting on Tuesday: “The dedicated phone line remains open and thus far we have received over 1,000 calls from concerned members of the public since Friday.
“I would encourage anyone who has concerns about the service they have received from Legacy Independent Funeral Directors that have not yet contacted us to please contact us on the dedicated helpline.”
Another Legacy customer, Billie-Jo Suffill, 33, lost her dad, Andy Suffill, 52, and her brother in July 2022.
She says she “never received” her dad’s ashes. The mum of three said: “I never actually got to see my dad’s body. I bet my dad was not even in the coffin – it was an empty coffin.
“I was kissing an empty coffin. When I think about it now it is disgusting. I got ashes after my brother’s funeral. But now I don’t even know if they are his ashes and I never got any from my dad.”
Another person grieving told the Telegraph earlier this week that police had informed her, her stepdad might be one of the recovered bodies. They were given what they thought to be his ashes weeks ago.
Worries arise that claims against the funeral home could span 13 years back.
