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Elderly woman’s dead body left in unrefrigerated van as funeral directors enjoyed festival

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Photo. (Getty images/Gallo images)
Photo. (Getty images/Gallo images)

Two funeral directors land in hot water after leaving a dead body unrefrigerated to attend a festival.

A deceased Australian woman’s family is livid after her dead body was left at the back of an unrefrigerated van while funeral directors, Shirley and Terry Goater left to enjoy the Bingara Orange Festival on the evening of 6 July, reports Metro.

Judith Newman’s family had to scrape together R68 667,29  for her funeral with her daughter, Dianne Chappell lashing out – for the first time since incident – at the Goater’s, saying they had no respect for the family or the deceased pensioner.

“There’s just no respect. You wouldn’t treat a dog like that, the thing I can’t get my head around is them leaving her in that yard while they went to an orange festival,’ Dianne told The Northern Daily Leader.

The pair left the woman’s body overnight in the van with the air-conditioning on, but switched it off the next day and believe they did nothing wrong.

 “We had plans for the Saturday so we left the car going and left her in the car and then when we came home, four hours later, we proceeded to Inverell (an Australian town) ,” Shirley said.

“It [the air-conditioning] was on until we left, you’re allowed to keep a body eight hours without refrigeration.”

Mrs Chappell’s daughter-in-law Lisa O’Neile told Daily Mail Australia the Goaters were ‘disgraceful people’.

Sources: The Northern Daily Leader, Metro, Daily Mail Australia

 

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