Two people who ran a funeral home left a man’s decomposing body in a leaking, un-cooled mortuary room for over a month, a court has heard.
Richard Elkin, 49, and Hayley Bell, 42, are on trial at Portsmouth Crown Court.
The pair, who ran Elkin and Bell Funerals in Gosport, Hampshire, are accused of preventing lawful burial of a dead body and fraud.
Prosecutor Lesley Bates KC told the jury on Tuesday that High Court enforcement agents, tasked with repossessing the premises due to unpaid rent and debts, had found the bodies of two elderly men.
“They felt immediate concern at the circumstances in which the bodies were being kept,” Ms Bates said.
“Water was coming in through a leak in the roof of the mortuary room, it was running down the walls.
“The room was not refrigerated, the temperature within the mortuary room was no different to elsewhere in the premises.”
The bodies were those of William Mitchell, 87, and Clive Reynolds, Ms Bates said.
She added that Mr Mitchell’s body “showed obvious signs of decomposition”.
The court heard that the body remained in the mortuary room for 36 days and Elkin told police that the cremation had not taken place because they had not received payment.
But Ms Bates said that Mr Mitchell had taken out a funeral plan with Golden Charter Ltd, and the defendants had been paid £2,040 to pay for the cremation.
The court heard that Bell then provided an invoice to Mr Mitchell’s sister-in-law, Patricia Mitchell, for the sum of £1,295, saying that a coffin of “simple design” would be provided, while telling Golden Charter it would be “fully lined, oak veneered MDF coffin”, when no coffin had actually been purchased for Mr Mitchell.
Ms Bates said that Mr Mitchell’s family “were incredulous” when told by police that his body had not been cremated in the planned private cremation, and had even placed a wreath at Portchester Crematorium in the “mistaken belief that his body had been cremated there”.
She said: “In any properly managed firm of undertakers, there was no good reason, it is submitted, why the cremation of the body of William Mitchell should have been subject to any undue delay.
“During his life, William Mitchell himself had put in place the arrangements to ensure things would be done exactly as they should be.”
Ms Bates said that Elkin told police he had not been involved in the business for two years and it had been the responsibility of Bell, but she said that he had been “actively involved”, including collecting the body of Mr Mitchell from his home.
They said they had been aware of a problem with the roof and were waiting for the landlord to carry out repairs, and Elkin said that the refrigeration unit must have broken, the court heard.
The defendants denied intentionally causing public nuisance between 27 June 2022 and 11 December 2023, preventing lawful burial of a dead body between 3 November 2023 and 11 December 2023, and carrying on a business fraudulently between 10 August 2022 and 11 December 2023.
Elkin is also accused of using a false certificate of funeral directing on or before 10 December 2023.
The trial continues.
