Buried in a pauper's grave - anguish of 7 year-old who couldn't visit her father’s burial plot - CNJ EXCLUSIVE

Published: 16 June 2011
by JOSIE HINTON

NOT one, but two men were buried in a “pauper’s grave” at St Pancras Cemetery without their relatives being informed, writes Josie Hinton.

Both families had no idea their loved ones had been taken to a municipal cemetery used by authorities when someone who dies does not have next-of-kin or obvious funds to pay for a funeral. 

These graves are often six coffins deep, stacked above each other to maximise space in the cemetery.

The confusion meant the body at the top of the grave also had to be exhumed. That was Fred Newman, the well-known pensioner with strong ties to Camden Town Neighbourhood Advice Centre, formerly of Greenland Road, Camden Town. 

His friend, the late Barry Sullivan, a volunteer advice worker, was left with the agonising decision to allow Mr Newman to be disturbed after death.

Lawyers were employed to arrange the bodies’ removal with relatives desperate to find out what had happened to those who had died and to be given the chance to arrange their own funerals.

In Mr Myers’ case, attempts to trace his family only came to light when Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust began an internal investigation. His brother, Thomas, lived just around the corner from the hospital where Mr Myers had died.

Paul Startup was buried in the same grave in July 2005.

His mother, Millie Goodbourn, who lived in Maidstone, Kent, was not told of her son’s death and later fought to have his remains exhumed so they could be relocated close to her home.

A Royal Free Hospital spokesman said at the time that “strenuous efforts” had been made to find family, and passed on condolences to relatives.

Susan Hardie, the Myers family’s solicitor, said in a letter to the New Journal that the situation had “significantly increased the distress to Anthony’s family, in particular his daughter Brogan, aged seven, who could not understand why there had not been a funeral and why Anthony did not have his own place of rest that she could visit”.

She added: “Explaining the situation to Brogan has caused the Myers family untold distress.” 

The health trust paid the cost of a funeral for Mr Myers in 2007.