Bobby Storey funeral: Top undertaker savages council for ‘absolute fiasco’ of cremation

The manner in which republicans bade farewell to the dead IRA intelligence chief has sparked a furore which yesterday still refused to die down, exactly one week on.

Now Stephen McCosh, executive member of the National Association of Funeral Directors (and the former chairman of the British Institute of Funeral Directors) has unleashed a torrent of criticism at the council.

He says that a mere two-and-a-half hours before Mr Storey’s mourners were allowed into the crematorium grounds last Tuesday, he had personally seen people turned away at the gates.

He was speaking as it emerged yesterday the council had allowed Mr Storey’s family the right to gather outside the crematorium, a day before the same right was extended to the general public.

The News Letter has seen a letter sent from the council’s bereavement services wing, saying: “It has been decided to move the provision of outdoor committals at the crematorium forward to Wednesday 1st July. This will provide families with the option of holding a 10 minute service/eulogy outside of the crematorium chapel.”

However, the council has also acknowledged that 30 people had been present outside the crematorium for Mr Storey’s funeral on Tuesday, and that mourners for the other eight people cremated that day had been forbidden from doing likewise.

The council has now conceded that this decision was an “error of judgment”, and that it “has apologised unreservedly to eight families who were not afforded the option to have up to 30 people at an outdoor committal service following the cremation of their loved one on Tuesday”.

All this followed on from concerns about non-council members acting as stewards at Roselawn (see below).

Mr McCosh said yesterday’s statement from the council is “nothing short of farcical”, and amounts to “silly, feeble excuses”.

He added it will cause many people to wonder: “Is Mr Storey’s family more important than the other eight families?”

“One of those funerals on Tuesday of those eight people was a friend of mine’s mother,” he told the News Letter.

“Now this lady nursed her own mother for three months. She passed away last weekend, and she was told her mum couldn’t go home.

“That weekend, footage emerged of Mr Storey getting taken home.

“They were told they couldn’t have a funeral service of any more than 10 people at the funeral church at the funeral home in Lisburn. Me and my partner had to stand outside ‘cause we couldn’t go in.

“The coffin wasn’t allowed to be carried.

“[The family] followed the hearse to the crematorium, where the hearse got through the gates, and the staff locked the gates, and would not allow them in.

“Right up until Mr Storey’s funeral, anyone going to Roselawn for the crematorium, the only thing allowed through the gates was the hearse – nothing else.

“Why weren’t those other eight families not given the same respect to be allowed into the crematorium grounds to say goodbye to their parents, loved ones, children or whoever that may be?

“Absolutely shocking. It’s a fiasco – an absolute fiasco.

“We’ve taken children up there to say goodbye to parents, they got turned away. We’ve takenparents with kids who were stillborn, who were two years of age – all have been turned away at the gate. Over the course of the last three months. All families have all been turned away.

“Even in the case of last week where we went to the crematorium and our families were turned away at the gate...

“On Tuesday, they got right to the gates and the gates were locked after the hearse and they weren’t allowed in.

“And yet two-and-a-half hours later there seemed to be a [group of people] allowed into Roselawn cemetery to do whatever they wanted.”

The council said: “An operational decision was made that, for cremations, the new procedures would apply from the cremation of Bobby Storey on the afternoon of Tuesday 30 June onwards, and this was the case from Wednesday.

“We accept in hindsight that this was an error of judgment.

“This meant that only one of the nine cremation services on Tuesday 30 June had 30 people in attendance. There were four burial services and these burial services had up to 30 in attendance.

“There were eight cremation services affected. We are in the process of contacting these families and are deeply sorry for how this error will have affected them and any hurt and distress caused.

“Belfast City Council made an operational decision to hold the last three cremation slots of the day on Tuesday 30 June. This decision was made in order to ensure that there were no other cremations later that day in order to protect the privacy of other members of the public and their cremation services.

“Belfast City Council did not know whether to anticipate high numbers or otherwise and therefore planned for all circumstances. It is normal practice in the event of a high-profile cremation to hold slots.

“There is currently no waiting list at Roselawn Crematorium and no cremations were cancelled.

“Operational decisions like these made by Belfast City Council are made impartially in what is often a complex and difficult political environment.”

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