After failing to buy him a coffin, two funeral directors left a pensioner’s decomposing body in an unrefrigerated mortuary for more than a month, a court has heard.
Richard Elkin, 49, and Hayley Bell, 42, who ran Elkin and Bell Funerals in Gosport, Hampshire are on trial in Portsmouth Crown Court accused of preventing the lawful burial of a dead body and fraud.
The bodies of two elderly men were found by High Court enforcement officers who had been tasked with repossessing the premises due to unpaid rent and debts, prosecutor Lesley Bates KC told the jury.
Ms Bates said: ‘They felt immediate concern at the circumstances in which the bodies were being kept.
‘Water was coming in through a leak in the roof of the mortuary room, it was running down the walls.
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‘The room was not refrigerated, the temperature within the mortuary room was no different to elsewhere in the premises.’
The two bodies were those of William Mitchell, 87, and Clive Reynolds.
William’s body ‘showed obvious signs of decomposition’ and had been left in the unrefrigerated mortuary room for 36 days, the court heard.
Elkin told police that the cremation had not taken place because they had not received payment.
However, Ms Bates said that William had taken out the funeral plan with Golden Charter Ltd, and the defendants had been paid £2,040 to pay for the cremation.
Bell had given William’s sister-in-law, Patricia Mitchell, an invoice for the sum of £1,295, saying that a coffin of ‘simple design’ would be provided.
Golden Charter Ltd were told it would be a ‘fully lined, oak veneered MDF coffin,’ the court heard.
But, no coffin of any design had actually been purchased for William.
William’s family ‘were incredulous’ when told by police that his body had not been cremated in the planned private cremation, Ms Bates said.
His family, believing that his body had been cremated, had even placed a wreath at Porchester Crematorium, the court heard.
Ms Bates told the court: ‘In any properly managed firm of undertakers, there was no good reason, it is submitted, why the cremation of the body of William Mitchell should have been subject to any undue delay.
‘During his life, William Mitchell himself had put in place the arrangements to ensure things would be done exactly as they should be.’
She also said that Elkin told police he had not been involved in the business for two years and that responsibility was put on Bell.
Ms Bates denies this claim, saying he had been ‘actively involved’, including collecting the body of Mr Mitchell from his home.
In relation to the mortuary room’s leaking roof, the defendants said they were waiting for the landlord to carry out repairs.
Elkin said the refrigeration unit must have broken, the court heard.
The defendants denied intentionally causing public nuisance between June 27 2022 and December 11 2023, preventing lawful burial of a dead body between November 3 2023 and December 11 2023, and carrying on a business fraudulently between August 10 2022 and December 11 2023.
Elkin is also accused of using a false certificate of funeral directing on or before December 10 2023.
The trial continues.
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