Daily Telegraph, 4th August 2009
A mother has been told to pay an £86 penalty for staying too long at the side of her dead baby’s coffin following a funeral service at a crematorium.
Terrie Rouse, 32, was encouraged by her vicar to spend an extra 10 minutes “to say goodbye” to her 5-week old son Zane, who had died in her arms from sudden infant death syndrome.
However, she was unaware that crematorium officials impose an extra charge if a funeral overruns its allotted 30-minute slot, and was given the charge by the council.
The child’s father, Lee Smythe, said the charges imposed by Milton Keynes council were “disgusting”. “Terrie was weeping hysterically”, he said. “She just wanted a few extra minutes to say goodbye to our much-loved little boy. How could anyone be cruel enough to charge for this?”….
The charge for staying 10 minutes too long was almost three times as much as the bill for the cremation.
The family’s funeral directors, Masons of Bletchley, said that the next funeral at the crematorium was not due for 50 minutes.
A council spokesman said: “We understand this has been a distressing time for this family but we are willing to listen if there are difficulties and extenuating circumstances that need to be considered”.
How nice of them!!
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Comments
how utterly disgusting do people have no common sense ofr compassion
WHY THE FECK DO YOU THINK SHE WAS STAYING THERE TO HAVE A CHAT AND A FAG WITH DORIS FROM NUMBER
They exist for OUR BENEFIT not the other way round!
I'm not a violent person but I'm with NLA on this one.
Yes, some idiot has incepted a procedure without thinking it through and he/she should be severely disciplined and no end of apology to the bereaved. But, I do get concerned at the lynchmob mentality - it was a very, very stupid cock up but that hardly warrants burning people alive.
As a son of a Fire Officer I would not LITERALLY burn somebody alive and I doubt NLA would either.
The point as far as I am concerned is that these little Hitlers are not accountable to the public they exist to serve and indeed expect us to adapt our behaviour for their convenience.
The person responsible should be named and shamed in my view. Others of that ilk may then show more sensitivity to the people they serve if only to avoid a similar fate.
Naming and shaming I would totally agree with in this instance . People should be made accountable for their stupidity but let the punishment fit the crime.
They'd probably end up fining you for not carrying a flammable liquid in the appropriate vessel and not having the correct HazChem handling licence NLA
Help yourself to a dose of realism anytime you fancy Fella. I dont think they were in any way serious.....
I share your concerns re vigilantism (if there is such a word).
However one way of assuaging our concerns would be for "authority" in general and the police in particular to address issues and crimes which concern the decent silent majority rather than a politically correctness driven box ticking culture.
Just my opinion. Vigilantism is borne of frustration and impotence and arrogant governments and local authorities ignoring and abusing decent, hardworking ordinary people fuel it.
the non-thinking classes.
That little jobsworth punching their way through their mundane day was only doing their job as dictated by their duty list.
It's not their job to actually think and consider the implications of what they are doing.
Councils need to increase revenue at all costs - so a manager in a position of authority must have actually approved the concept of applying punitive charges in the first place?