A funeral director accused of keeping the body of a baby in her living room “watching cartoons” has defended her actions, claiming she did nothing wrong.
Shocking reports out of the UK cite how 38-year-old Amie Upton, manager of funeral service organization Florrie’s Army, was caught out when the mother of a deceased child came to her home.
Zoe Ward tragically lost her son Bleu when he was only three weeks old, later employing the services of Florrie’s Army to arrange his funeral after a recommendation from a family friend.
The BBC claim that Upton started the service after her own daughter was stillborn in 2017, with Ward of the belief that her son’s body had been picked up from hospital by someone on behalf of Florrie’s Army and taken to a “professional setting”.
One can hardly imagine her horror, then, when she arrived at Upton’s address to find Upton “watching” cartoons with her son’s body beside her in a baby bouncer in the living room.
“I realised it were Bleu and she [Ms Upton] says: ‘Come in, we’re watching PJ Masks,” Ward recalled.
“There’s a cat scratcher in the corner and I can hear a dog barking and there was another [dead] baby on the sofa. It wasn’t a nice sight.
“I rang my mum and I’m saying, ‘This ain’t right’… I was screaming down the phone [saying]: ‘It’s mucky, it’s dirty, he can’t stay here.'”
It was promptly arranged for another funeral director to collect baby Bleu’s body and remove him from Upton’s care.
“I didn’t want him in that house,” Ward said, explaining how the “weird” experience had left her “upset and angry”.
Following the incident, Upton was banned from NHS maternity wards and mortuaries in Leeds, UK. The 38-year-old, however, insists she did nothing wrong.
“They were always clean and tidy and were not deteriorating or smelly as claimed on posts I’ve seen today…We had refrigerating units up there and cold cots,” she said.
“The babies here were not put in a fridge when staff go home but I was here all the time.
“Their babies knew nothing but love. You don’t find nurses reading their babies a story. I would. I know I only ever did my best. It is ridiculous.”
According to the BBC, Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust said it had received “several serious concerns” relating to Upton’s services over the past few years.
It claimed Florrie’s Army was not endorsed by or associated with its hospitals and it had raised concerns about Upton’s activities with the police.
“When we first became aware of concerns, we implemented extra steps in our mortuary services on top of our already robust measures,” it added.
“Since 2021 we have had specific safeguarding measures in place, including monitoring [Ms Upton’s] attendance when visiting deceased patients at the mortuary in her funeral service role.”
Meanwhile, West Yorkshire Police confirmed it had investigated two reports about Upton’s funeral service since 2021, but stated that following “extensive enquiries… no potential crimes were identified”.
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