Funeral bill struggle for mother - Angie Barrett says cost of daughter Jackie's cremation has left her "financially crippled"

Published: 24 March 2011
by JAMIE WELHAM

THE mother of a murdered Gospel Oak woman has admitted she is struggling to pay her daughter’s funeral bill.

Angie Barrett, a caretaker manager for Camden Council, said she was overwhelmed by the number of people who attended Golders Green crematorium last month following the death of her daughter Jackie.

But Ms Barrett said the £3,500 cost has left the family financially crippled as she is not eligible for relief due to her being in full-time employment.

Ms Barrett, 62, is also caring for her daughter’s four-year-old son, Reece. 

Jackie’s body was discovered in a Crickle­wood flat in December last year. She was 34 years old and had only recently moved away from her mother’s home in Cressfield Close.

Ms Barrett said: “There are so many people who did wonderful things at the funeral and before that, that I haven’t been able to thank. I keep finding out about people who laid all the amazing flowers and brought them back in a truck from the crematorium to lay them outside the community centre [Queen’s Crescent Community Centre]. Jackie had so many friends and I want to let people know their help over the last month means the world to me. 

“We don’t have any savings and none of the rest of the family works. I’ve gone back to work this week, but at the moment I just don’t know where the money is going to come from.”

Houssam Djemaa, 23, from Cricklewood, has pleaded not guilty to Jackie’s murder and will go on trial in June at the Old Bailey.