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<\/p>\nA daughter visited her mum\u2019s empty grave for four years after bungling crematorium staff left her ashes on a shelf.<\/p>\n
Heartbroken Rachel Griffiths thought she\u2019d fulfilled mum Yvonne\u2019s dying wishes by burying her with her parents and sister. But four years after she was supposedly laid to rest, crematorium staff confessed she\u2019d never been buried at all and bosses still have no clue why. It means Rachel and her son Jordan, 27, visited the grave around 50 times without knowing she wasn\u2019t there.<\/p>\n
Care assistant Rachel, of Cardiff, said: \u201cMy mum was left on a shelf. It makes me feel physically sick to think I\u2019d go up to the cemetery, my son used to go as well and talk to her and she wasn\u2019t even there. This should never ever have happened. I feel like I have let my mum down.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Rachel\u2019s mum Yvonne died of a heart attack in May 2017 aged 61. She had asked to be buried in the same plot as her parents Anita and Lyn at Western Cemetery in Cardiff. Yvonne had kept her sister Lynette Magee\u2019s ashes so that when she died the sisters could be buried together with their mum and dad.<\/p>\n
Following Yvonne\u2019s funeral service, she was cremated at Cardiff Crematorium before being buried on June 5, 2017. But bizarrely a double casket for the sisters supplied to crematorium staff only had Lynette\u2019s ashes put in. And it was more than four years later in August 2021 that Rachel received a letter from Cardiff Council out of the blue.<\/p>\n
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In it, Martin Birch, Cardiff Council\u2019s manager for bereavement services, explained that Yvonne\u2019s ashes had been found at the crematorium during a recent check. The letter said: \u201cI am very sorry to have to inform you that during a recent check of cremated remains held at our crematorium we have discovered the cremated remains of your mother Yvonne are still with us and were not placed in the double casket supplied at the time for the interment.<\/p>\n
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\u201cI am really sorry for what has occurred, please accept my sincere apologies for this error on our part and for any additional distress this matter will cause you and your family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yvonne\u2019s remains have since been added to the plot, but not in the double casket she had wished for as a licence would have been required to exhume Lynette. The council paid for the second interment and gave Rachel a bunch of flowers.<\/p>\n