A Bexley family was left in shock after receiving a letter saying their loved one's ashes were ready to be collected, even though he died 26 years ago.
Victor Charles O’Brien died in 2000, and his ashes were believed to have been collected the following year before he was buried at Hillview Cemetery in Welling.
But at the end of last month, his family received a letter from Tender Touch Funeral Service, stating that its records showed it was still holding Mr O’Brien’s cremated remains and asking them to arrange collection.
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Mr O’Brien’s granddaughter Lindsey Smith told the News Shopper: "Our first instinct was to call the number on the letter to say, ‘What the hell’s going on?’
"The letter was addressed to my dad, and although he’d been dead 12 years, he had nothing to do with my grandfather’s funeral.
"So, we opened the letter, and it said, ‘No one has collected him. Could you please come and collect his ashes?’
"So, we thought, ‘What?’"
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She said the family contacted the number on the letter and was later contacted by the funeral service’s director.
Lindsey said the director apologised for the distress caused and told her the letter had been sent because of a computer error.
She said she was told a member of staff had been going through records and had sent the letters without another person checking them first.
Lindsey challenged the process, telling the funeral service: "That’s a bit unprofessional if she’s not waiting for the second person to check it."
She said the funeral service reassured her that the ashes were those of her grandfather, but this did little to settle her family’s concerns.
Lindsey said: "My mum’s worried now. Do we actually have my grandfather here, or have we got someone else?
"I said he’d been dead since 2000, so why are they going back so far? If it was in the last five years, then fair enough, but not 26 years."
Lindsey said she was subsequently told the letter may have been connected to another person's name appearing underneath her grandfather's details.
She said this only raised further concerns before the family was told around 15 other people had received letters in error.
However, when her sister later contacted the funeral service, she was allegedly told the number was 20.
Lindsey said: "She told my sister a completely different story. She just said it was done in error. She told me another person didn’t get the letters signed off and sent them out."
The family later received a letter of apology, which confirmed that Mr O’Brien’s cremated remains were collected in 2001, but this conflicted with the original letter which said: "Our records show that we continue to hold in our care the cremated remains of the late Victor Charles O’Brien."
Lindsey said her family cannot understand how both records could exist.
She said: "Why would their record be showing that when we already picked him up and had a burial at Hillview Cemetery in Welling?"
She explained that her grandmother had bought a plot at Hillview Cemetery and the family held a service before Mr O’Brien’s ashes were placed there.
But despite the apology, Lindsey said her mother remains uncertain about whether the ashes buried at the cemetery are those of her father.
She said: "She’s still in doubt whether she has got my dad. We’ve got to just take their word for it now."
A spokesperson for Tender Touch Funeral Service said: "We fully appreciate the seriousness and sensitivity of this matter and, first and foremost, would like to reiterate our sincere apologies to Mr O’Brien’s family for the distress and upset caused by the correspondence they received.
"The letter was sent as part of an internal review of historical records relating to cremated remains that we believed, according to our database records, remained in our care for an extended period.
"Our procedure required these records to be manually checked against our Ashes Register before any correspondence was issued.
"Unfortunately, a number of letters were sent before those final checks had been completed.
"This was an internal procedural error, and we accept responsibility for the fact that the correspondence was issued prematurely.
"Following the family’s contact with us, we immediately reviewed Mr O’Brien’s records and the Ashes Register.
"We can confirm that our records show that his cremated remains were collected on 9 July 2001 and subsequently interred at Hillview Cemetery on 25 July 2001.
"We have provided the family a copy of the relevant ashes register record and, where appropriate, offered independent confirmation from the cemetery.
"We understand the concern caused by receiving a letter suggesting that the cremated remains remained in our care when they had in fact been dealt with many years ago.
"We are particularly sorry for the distress this caused, given the sensitive nature of the correspondence.
"In relation to the number of letters issued, 20 letters were sent before the final manual checks had been completed.
"During the subsequent review, we established that five of those records had already been resolved, including remains that had been collected or buried. This is why different figures have subsequently been referred to.
"We acknowledge that this has understandably caused confusion, and we apologise for that.
"We have now reviewed the circumstances surrounding the error and have strengthened our procedures.
"No further correspondence relating to these historical records will be issued without the relevant record first being manually verified against our Ashes Register.
"We have also written directly to the families affected to explain what happened, apologise for the error and provide the information available to us regarding the current status of their loved one’s cremated remains.
"We have been providing funeral services to local families for many years, and the trust placed in us to care for people’s loved ones is something we take extremely seriously.
"We deeply regret that this error occurred and the distress it has caused.
"We hope that this response provides some reassurance that, in Mr O’Brien’s case, our records confirm that his cremated remains were correctly collected and subsequently interred in 2001, and that they have not been in our care during the intervening years."
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