Woman cremated after body mix-up

Relatives of Cardiff woman Mary Williams had travelled from abroad for her funeral in city, only to learn her body had been cremated last week by mistake.

Mrs Williams' body had been confused with that of another woman with the same surname and of around the same age.

Her twin sister claimed the blunder meant she was buried in a religious ceremony - something that, in life, she had said she did not want.

The Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust has begun inquiries to find out what happened at Llandough Hospital, near Cardiff after Mrs Williams, 59, who lives in the Lisvane area of the city, died last week.

One member of her family, her twin Liz Morgan, 59, had driven almost 2,000 miles across Europe, from Greece, to be at the funeral in Wales.

But she was told the mortuary had wrongly given her sister's body to another family which had it cremated, thinking it belonged to their loved one.

Ms Morgan said: "I was absolutely gutted.

"Words cannot really express adequately how I feel about such a terrible thing to happen."

On Wednesday, despite the trauma of the previous few days, Ms Morgan went ahead with a memorial service for her sister at the crematorium.

It meant that unlike, Mrs Williams's first funeral, there was no body at all.

But it was some comfort for Ms Morgan who is angry about the episode.

"She had a funeral among a load of strangers and with a clergyman or some other religious person, which is what she didn't want."

Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust has issued a statement saying it did not know how the mix-up occurred.

It said it fully recognised the families' distress and would keep them fully informed.

They also offered the two families the services of a bereavement nurse.

It is understood the other Williams family is arranging a second funeral, this time with the right body.

In March this year, in an unrelated case, it emerged that up to 150 graves in a Newport graveyard did not contain the body of the person named on the headstone.