Woman 'too large' to be cremated

The 61-year-old was said to be too big to be cremated

A family have been told their dead mother could not be cremated in her home city because she was too large.

Penelope Stapleton from Norwich, who died last week of a heart attack at the age of 61, weighed 22 stone.

Managers apologised to her family but still told them the coffin was too large for the facilities at Norwich's Earlham crematorium.

Her daughters have now arranged a cremation 120 miles (193km) away in Watford and said they are very angry.

Daughter Natasha Stapleton said: "I know a lot of people who are disgusted by their attitude.

Services not available

"I want people to know about what happened to us and that the crematorium owners are not going to do anything about it.

"When people die you expect they must have respect and we're not getting this.

"It's really upsetting."

The crematorium has apologised to Mrs Stapleton's family but maintained they were unable to offer their services.

Earlham Crematorium manager David Baxter said: "We are very sorry that we can't look after the funeral for this family.

"There have been a couple of funerals in the last two years which we couldn't look after because of the size of the coffins."