Funeral goers aghast as hearse with body is stolen

AN AUSTRALIAN family yesterday spoke of their shock after a man jumped out of bushes and drove off with the hearse carrying the body of a relative just before his funeral.

Hayley West and husband Tobias Richardson were preparing for the funeral service of her brother-in-law Seth at a school building in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney on Thursday morning, when the alleged carjacker made his move.

“Just as we were talking in the foyer and one of the funeral directors was getting the trolley to put the coffin on, a guy jumped out of the bushes and jumped into the hearse and started it up,” West said.

“The funeral home guy was banging on the window, saying ‘ What are you doing? You can’t drive away in a hearse’.

“We are all standing around, going ‘Oh my God, the hearse has been stolen’.”

Richardson jumped into his own car to pursue the thief as West called the police.

The hearse drove into the grounds of a school, with Richardson using his car to block it off.

“Tobias jumped out and said, ‘What the hell are you doing?’,” West said.

“The guy meekly said, need to go to hospital’.”

Police officers arrived five minutes later and took the 49year-old man to hospital, adding that he had dementia and had gone missing from a home earlier on Thursday.

“It is anticipated no further police action will be taken regarding the incident,” a police spokesman said.

West said the funeral service carried on afterwards as planned and that Seth Richardson would have seen the funny side of the incident. “He would have thought it was hilarious.” — AFP

‘I