GRAVE CONCERN

Pensioner Eileen Hook has condemned the "desecration" of her parents' grave after earth from a freshly-dug plot was dumped on top of it. The mound of soil prevented Mrs Hook from laying flowers when she visited the grave of her parents, Kate and Jack Shepherd, formerly of Dryden Street, Normanton, at Stenson Road Cemetery. Mr Shepherd died in 1961 and his wife was buried with him after she died in 1991. The earth Mrs Hook found had come from a new plot which had been dug out next to her parents' grave. She was accompanied on her journey to the cemetery by her daughter, Lynn Kennedy, of Berwick Avenue, Chaddesden, and said that they both burst into tears because were so upset at what they found.

Mrs Hook, of Prince Charles Avenue, Mackworth, said, "What they did is desecration and I think it's really bad. There's so much earth and mud on my parents' grave that I couldn't reach the flowers to change them. I had even taken a bucket to clean the stone off with but couldn't get to that either. My daughter and I both burst into tears when we saw it." Mrs Hook phoned Nottingham Road Cemetery, where all Derby's cemetery staff are based, to complain but says she was told what they had found was a normal working practice.

"The woman I spoke to said that this sort of thing happened all the time. She was quite rude and I just didn't need that because I was upset," she said. "I suggested they have a small skip to keep the earth in, rather than dumping it on other graves but was told that I was being silly and they said 'can you imagine a skip in a cemetery?' "But surely that would be better than having to touch other people's graves? In this day and age I couldn't believe what we were looking at. My daughter and I just broke down."

But according to John Winters, director of commercial services for the council, what Mrs Hook saw was standard cemetery practice. He said, "Our standard procedure when we dig a grave is to put earth on to any spare land. However, as in this case, when we have to dig between two used plots, then we have nowhere else to put it and we have to place it on a grave. We make sure we remove any pots and flowers first and then clear it up after the funeral as best we can. When Mrs Hook telephoned our staff member they did try to explain all this to her, but she was clearly upset and not very receptive to our explanation."