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Funeral directors jailed for four years after decomposing body found in mortuary
Two funeral directors jailed for four years after storing over 40 bodies without refrigeration and misleading families, with one body decomposed for 36 days, court heard.
- On Thursday, Richard Elkin, 49, and Hayley Bell, 42, were sentenced to four years each at Portsmouth Crown Court after convictions last year for public nuisance, preventing burial, and fraud.
- Failing to keep bodies cold, the directors falsified logs and misled inspectors; the court found they continually neglected refrigeration to cut costs and bought an unsuitable refrigeration unit on eBay after an August 2021 probe by the Gosport Environmental Health Partnership.
- High Court enforcement agents found two elderly men's bodies during repossession, the mortuary room recorded 11.48C, and William Mitchell, 87‑year‑old deceased, showed decomposition with water leaks.
- On Thursday, statements from 13 family members described lasting trauma, Andrew Eddy, Crown Prosecution Service, called the sentence an `important moment`, and the Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management urged `urgent` regulation.
- More than 40 other bodies stored between June 28 2022 and December 10 2023 are in `unknown` condition, the judge warned, raising sector concerns.
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Funeral directors jailed over decomposing body found in mortuary after 36 days
Richard Elkin, 49, and Hayley Bell, 42, who ran Elkin and Bell Funerals in Gosport, Hampshire.
·London, United Kingdom
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Funeral directors jailed for four years after decomposing body found in mortuary
During the trial, the court heard that there had been five other known cases of "badly decomposed" bodies kept in the mortuary room of Elkin and Bell in Gosport, run by Richard Elkin, 49, and Hayley Bell, 42.
·United Kingdom
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Total News Sources15
Leaning Left4Leaning Right1Center9Last UpdatedBias Distribution64% Center
Bias Distribution
- 64% of the sources are Center
64% Center
L 29%
C 64%
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