A grieving son was horrified to discover that the ashes he believed belonged to his mother that he’d been kissing every night, were actually those of another deceased person
A brother and sister were preparing to scatter their beloved mum’s ashes on the family grave where their father and three other siblings are located when they made a horrifying discovery.
Just days before Brian Allison and his sibling Anne Gibson were due to travel from Manchester to Scotland for the important event, they contacted the crematorium to question the lack of paperwork they had been given along with the urn and why there was no name on it.
It was then they were told their mother Patricia’s ashes hadn’t been collected and there was an outstanding bill to pay, despite the late pensioner taking out a plan to cover her own funeral costs. Brian was horrified when he realised he had been saying goodnight to the remains of another person for months.
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“I’d been kissing this total stranger goodnight every night and obviously it’s affected my mental health,” Brian, 62, told the BBC. “We had them for five months, then I found out it wasn’t my mum, it was a total stranger.”
The catastrophic error was uncovered when the siblings contacted Clydebank Crematorium and were told the urn they had received from A Milne Funeral Directors in Balornock, Glasgow, didn’t contain the ashes of their mother. The bill for the cremation hadn’t been paid either even though Patricia, who died in April 2023 aged 100, purchased a funeral plan at the firm’s Dumbarton office.
Anne had also taken out one of their plans to cover the cost of her own funeral when the time came. When she discovered hers was also invalid, she called Police Scotland. In May last year, police launched a huge ongoing financial investigation into A Milne Independent Funeral Directors.
Two women, aged 37 and 55, and a 56 year old man were arrested in connection with the investigation and released pending further inquiries. Operation Koine is currently looking into over 70 reports over practices at the business.
Last month an appeal was issued for anyone with concerns over cremated remains or funeral plans at the funeral directors to contact police. It has since been confirmed that “hundreds of lines of enquiry” have been received.
Tragically, in December last year Anne was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Brian said the need for answers over his mum’s ashes and the thought that he would have to stump up the money for her funeral “haunted” her in the final days of her life. “It affected Anne’s health with the cancer because she was worried,” he said. “Even on her deathbed in the hospital, she said to me, ‘I’m sorry you’ve been left with this’.”
Anne died in August aged 67 and Brian paid thousands for her funeral. He has since scattered her ashes at the family grave in Scotland, as per her wishes. He now has a memorial in his house in Manchester to his mum and Anne, who moved there from Dumbarton after Patricia died.
Losing both his loved ones so close together in such awful circumstances has put a great strain on Brian, who is suffering with his mental health and doesn’t leave the house other than to work.
His final promise to Anne was to find out exactly what happened at the funeral directors and why the financial plans were deemed invalid. “I’ll carry this on until my dying day if I have to, because I think it’s all wrong,” he said. “It’s not just my mum and my sister. It’s all these other innocent people. You can’t just let it go. To me it’s not about the money, it’s about respect.”