A mother grieving her stillborn son was horrified to discover the heartfelt tributes she left on his grave were moved – and later discovered council workers had buried another child on top of it.
Funeral directors told Katy Quillan, 29, her baby David, who died in April, would be buried in an individual plot at a cemetery in Southport, Merseyside.
The mother-of-one was told her family could decorate the grave with ‘whatever they liked’ and put up a small picket fence, pebbles and a Christmas tree and Father Christmas, as David was the only person buried there.
But when she tended her late son’s grave at Duke Street cemetery last week, she was horrified to find another child’s grave in the same plot.
Ms Quillan visited the plot with her family and found her decorations and memorials had been discarded and replaced with a teddy bear and flowers from another grieving family.
And when the devastated mother contacted funeral directors and Sefton Council, she was told that a child’s grave can be used to bury up to six children.
Ms Quillan, from Skelmersdale, Lancashire, said: ‘It was just horrible. I feel like I have no where to go now to visit my little boy.
‘When we went back to the grave after Christmas, we were shocked to find that all of our decorations had gone.
‘All of the stones had been put into a bin bag and the fence and ornaments had been damaged and thrown on the floor.
‘It took me hours to decorate David’s grave so that me and my daughter had somewhere to go.
‘I don’t want to move any of the items, I couldn’t do that to another mum.’
Ms Quillan, who is also mother to Brooke, five, added: ‘I was told it was my plot for my baby, and that I could get my own head stone and decorate the grave however I liked.
‘When I visited the grave before Christmas it did look like the soil had been turned over, but I didn’t even imagine that they might have buried another baby there.
‘If I had known this from the start it wouldn’t be a problem, but I thought that grave was just for David and to find out that it isn’t is heartbreaking.
‘I feel like I have been pushed aside and I just want answers. It’s disgraceful treatment.
‘The other family deserve to know too, I have thought about leaving them a note.’
Cemetery operators Sefton Council were contracted to carry out the burial, paid for by Ormskirk District General Hospital, on behalf of David’s family.
They were instructed by the funeral directors where and when to dig the plot, and insist the responsibility lies with the company to explain the types of graves used to bury children in.
A spokesperson for Sefton Council said: ‘Situations like these are always difficult because of the emotions involved but we do our very best to ensure that people are treated with the greatest of sympathy and respect.
‘As with most funerals, the onus is on the funeral directors to offer bereavement guidance to families and this would include explaining how these type of graves operate.’
A spokesperson from Hunters Funeral Directors declined to comment, but acknowledged they were involved in David’s burial.
