Woman finds another body buried in her plot

A woman who discovered another body had been buried in her plot beside her parents says she does not want the same thing to happen to other families.

When Sallyann Anderson visited the graves of her parents last month, she found another woman - also called Sallyann - had been buried six inches away from her father at Coney Hill Cemetery and Crematorium.

Mrs Anderson said she felt "so sorry" for the other family, but she wanted her plot back and had faced a "lack of communication" from Gloucester City Council.

The council, as owner of the cemetery, said it was working towards "a resolution for all families involved".

Mrs Anderson bought the plot beside the graves of her parents, Elsie and Harold Nicholas, in 2018.

She said she had found a "freshly dug" grave in her plot when she visited last month.

"I felt silly for crying but it was just such a shock," she said.

"[The council] said there was a clerical error. We've got the deeds, which we've had for seven years, but all of a sudden, they issued the same deeds to somebody else."

Her husband, John Anderson, contacted the cemetery on her behalf to ask how it was going to resolve the situation.

He said the council had offered an alternative plot behind the one originally bought, but his wife wanted to be buried beside her parents.

The council representative told him that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and the other family involved would need to be contacted.

"A couple of days later, she rang me back," he said. "She'd spoken to the MoJ, she'd spoken to her boss and she'd now contact the other family and get back to me in the next day or so - that's been two weeks ago."

Mrs Anderson said she wanted to make sure the same thing did not happen to other families.

"I feel very sorry for the other family because it's their loved one that's in there, but I've thought hard about this and I want my plot back," she said.

"I'm sorry, but that's where I want to be buried, with my mum and dad."

Gloucester City Council apologised earlier this week for burying two people in the wrong plots.

A council spokesperson said it was aware of the "incorrect burials" and had "followed all processes and procedures" to move the graves to the correct locations.

They said: "In one of these instances, the council became aware of the incorrect location following correspondence from a concerned member of the public that they had previously purchased a plot at the cemetery in 2018 as it was next to her parents.

"Unfortunately, this did not show up on searches when allocating a grave to a different family's deceased relative.

"We are in correspondence with both families and are working towards a resolution for all families involved."

The other family involved did not wish to comment.

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