A funeral director has been banned from Leeds hospitals after a grieving mother discovered her dead baby positioned in a living room watching cartoons. Amie Upton (38) was barred from NHS maternity wards and mortuaries in spring this year following several serious concerns about her baby funeral service.
Zoe Ward contacted Upton's service, Florrie's Army, after her son Bleu died from brain damage at three weeks old in 2021. She expected professional care including refrigerated storage, but instead found her baby's body in a baby bouncer in Upton's living room.
Horrifying discovery at home
Ward told the BBC she was terrified by what she found during her visit to Upton's house. "I realised it were Bleu and she says: 'Come in, we're watching PJ Masks.' There's a cat scratcher in the corner and I can hear a dog barking and there was another [dead] baby on the sofa," she said.
Ward described calling her mother in distress. "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,'" she said.
Another family believed their baby was being kept at a funeral home in Headingley, but discovered more than a week later their daughter was at Upton's home five miles away. The grandmother described the experience as like "a horror film".
Bodies not properly stored
The BBC found evidence that babies' bodies were not being kept in refrigerated conditions, despite Upton owning a refrigerated cot. One mother reported her child's body was "really smelly, like she'd been in there and not kept cool", suggesting improper temperature control.
Bodies should be stored at 4-7°C in clinical conditions according to professional standards. The inappropriate storage conditions left families traumatised during an already devastating time.
Regulatory gaps exposed
The shocking case highlights a fundamental flaw in England and Wales' funeral industry - there are no regulations governing funeral homes, including how bodies should be handled or stored. Anyone can operate funeral services from their home without qualifications or oversight.
Only Daily Mail reports that Upton lost her own baby Florrie in 2017 after her abusive partner Shaun Birchall caused trauma during pregnancy. Birchall was subsequently jailed for two years in April 2021 for grievous bodily harm against Upton.
Leeds Teaching Hospitals Trust had been monitoring Upton's attendance at St James's and Leeds General Infirmary since 2021. Chief nurse Rabina Tindale stressed that neither Upton nor Florrie's Army was endorsed by or associated with the trust.
Police investigation findings
According to Metro, West Yorkshire Police investigated two reports since 2021 but found no potential crimes after extensive enquiries. The Sir Jonathan Michael inquiry previously found the funeral system fundamentally flawed and urged statutory regulation.
The trust implemented specific safeguarding measures including accompanied visits to mortuaries and authorised handovers following trust policies. All concerns were raised with police, safeguarding services, regulators and the coroner's office.
Sources used: "The Guardian", "BBC", "Daily Mail", "Metro"
Note: This article has been edited with the help of Artificial Intelligence.
