Co-op Funeralcare is exposed by Channel 4’s Dispatches after claims they piled naked corpses like TVs

Co-op Funeralcare is exposed by Channel 4’s Dispatches after claims they piled naked corpses like TVs

Co-op Funeralcare was secretly filmed piling up naked corpses “like TV sets” on industrial estates.

Grieving families were led to think loved ones’ bodies rested in peace at funeral homes â€" but in many cases they were at grim warehouse morgues in “hubs” across Britain.

Last night the company told The Sun after the findings by Channel 4’s Dispatches: “We are shocked and disappointed. It’s against all we stand for and we’ve begun an inquiry.”

The programme â€" Undercover Undertaker, screened tomorrow at 8pm â€" also shows how:

A COFFIN lid was removed to cram four bodies in a van to Reading, Berks â€" leaving a dead old lady’s nose almost touching the roof. At the funeral home, staff unloaded the lidless casket in view of flats.

A WRONG body was found in a coffin at a funeral. Grieving Mandy Rowden said her family waited half an hour before mum Olwyn’s casket was found. “I was so angry I couldn’t cry,” she said. The firm paid her costs and compensation and disciplined staff.

BODIES are often frantically returned to local funeral parlours if families ask to see their relative one last time.

STAFF deliberately try to sell mourners more expensive funerals than they need, which Dispatches suggests could be in breach of industry codes.

Ex-funeral ombudsman Prof Geoffrey Woodroffe said: “I’m shocked. They’re treating people as if they’re stacking TV sets.”

Co-op Funeralcare handled 100,000 funerals last year and made £51million profit. Boss George Tinning called the findings “shocking” and apologised for the lidless coffin.

He said: “This isn’t the way I want our funeral directors to behave. We will investigate and deal with it appropriately.”

c.robertson@the-sun.co.uk