Baby outrage funeral bosses win appeal

Published on Wednesday 2 July 2008 10:26

TWO funeral parlour managers who hid the body of a dead baby in an elderly lady's coffin today won appeals against their sentences at the Court of Appeal in London.

Graeme Skidmore, 46, of Leslie Way, Dunbar, and Mark Eshelby, 49, from York, admitted conspiracy to prevent lawful burial of a corpse at York Crown Court last June.

They were sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment, suspended for two years, and each ordered to pay 5000 in fines.

The pair worked at Co-operative Funeral Services in York and panicked when they realised they had sent off the funeral procession of baby Benjamin Judson without putting his body in the coffin in December 1998.

In a desperate bid to cover up the mistake, they hid the premature baby's remains in the same coffin as that of 85-year-old grandmother Evelyn Sayner, and the bodies of both were incinerated on New Year's Eve, 1998.

For more than nine years, Benjamin's mum and dad, David and Paula, unknowingly visited an empty grave.

The attempted cover up came to light when City of York Council launched an investigation into allegations of malpractice.

Police exhumed Benjamin's empty coffin in February last year.

Today, in a hearing at the Court of Appeal, three top judges quashed their fines in total, and reduced their sentences to nine months' imprisonment, suspended for one year.