Funeral director ‘kept babies’ bodies at home and arranged them in living room’ | UK | News | EUROtoday

A funeral director who saved infants’ our bodies at her residence has been banned from NHS maternity wards and mortuaries after a grieving mom made a “terrifying” discovery. Amie Upton, 38, was discovered watching TV in her residence alongside the useless our bodies of two infants, one strapped right into a child bouncer and one other on the couch subsequent to her.

Zoe Ward, who had just lately misplaced her son, Bleu, was “terrified” to come across the scene and study that her deceased baby was being saved within the “dirty” situations of Ms Upton’s residence slightly than a “professional setting”. Ms Ward’s son died of mind injury at Leeds General Infirmary in 2021 and she or he determined to make use of Ms Upton’s child loss help and funeral service, Florrie’s Army, after it was advisable by a good friend. She switched funeral administrators after making the grim discovery. Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust banned Ms Upton from its mortuaries and maternity wards in spring of this yr, in keeping with a BBC investigation.

Ms Ward informed BBC News: “I realised it [was] Bleu and [Ms Upton] says, ‘Come in, we’re watching [cartoon TV series] PJ Masks’.

“There’s a cat scratcher within the nook and I can hear a canine barking and there was one other [dead] child on the couch. It wasn’t a pleasant sight. I rang my mum and … I used to be screaming down the cellphone, ‘It’s mucky, it is soiled, he cannot keep right here’.”

She said she immediately switched funeral directors after the “bizarre” incident, which left her feeling “upset and offended”.

The parents of another deceased baby, who wanted to remain anonymous, also described the idea of their stillborn daughter being kept at Ms Upton’s house as something out of “a horror movie”.

“I simply did not know why she was there,” the mother said. “It was simply loopy … [The baby’s body was] actually smelly, like she’d been in there and never saved cool.”

A spokesperson for the NHS Trust said: “When we first turned conscious of issues, we carried out additional steps in our mortuary companies on high of our already sturdy measures.

“Since 2021, we have had specific safeguarding measures in place, including monitoring [Ms Upton’s] attendence when visiting deceased patients at the mortuary in her funeral service role.”

Ms Upton informed the BBC that she had solely obtained two complaints within the eight years since she started operating Florrie’s Army.

West Yorkshire Police mentioned that it had performed “extensive enquiries” throughout which “no potential crimes were identified”.

A spokesperson added: “We recognise the concerns raised by these two families will have added to the distress they felt during an already incredibly difficult time. Our thoughts remain with them.”