Mother who couldn’t kiss her son goodbye
SANDRA Riley was ‘robbed’ of the chance to kiss her son goodbye after his body was left to deteriorate for almost three weeks during a heatwave.
Simon Jeffrey’s body was stored at the Co- op’s Windsor branch – where there were no cold storage facilities – for 20 days during the hottest time of the year, when outside temperatures peaked at 34.5C (94F).
When his mother, who works for the local council, tried to view his body, staff at the branch advised against it as he had deteriorated so badly.
Mrs Riley, 58, said: ‘I desperately wanted to kiss him goodbye because I hadn’t seen him. I needed to see him so I knew in my heart that it was really him.
‘I just had to kiss his coffin. My poor boy. I can’t believe they just left him like that for days. It is disgusting, I had no idea.’
Mr Jeffrey suddenly died on May 27, the day after his 35th birthday, while his mother was on holiday.
She booked his funeral at her local branch in Windsor using all of her savings for the £4,000 bill, which included embalming, and was given a date of July 6.
‘I was told that Slough Crematorium was having a refit so that was the earliest they could do,’ she said. Mrs Riley said she was told he would be kept in cold storage at Slough after his body was released.
However, he was transported back to the Windsor branch on June 16.
Here the former hotel porter was kept in a room for the next 20 days, during a heatwave, until his funeral. Staff at the Co- op had called Mrs Riley on June 16 informing her that he was deteriorating and that she should view him soon.
The mother- of- three said: ‘I couldn’t make it that day as I had an appointment but I went in as soon as I could a few days later.
‘When I went in they told me I shouldn’t see him as he had gone black.’
Ellen Bown, who was working in the branch at the time, said Mr Jeffrey had not been stored properly.
She said: ‘ He was stored in the room in the heat … he went black. The family wasn’t able to view him because he was so badly decomposed. He should have been viewable had he been stored properly.’
Mrs Riley added: ‘We trust these people and they’ve robbed me of my closure.’