Durham family still searching for dad after Wingate grave blunder

Earlier this month Tom Bell and his sisters discovered that someone else was buried under their dad’s headstone where they thought they had been visiting him for the last 17 years.

They only discovered the shocking blunder after the death of their mum Hilda whose last wishes were to be buried alongside her loving husband Thomas Bell.

Read more: EXCLUSIVE - Durham family spent 17 years visiting wrong grave due to blunder

It is now four weeks since the family received a call to say gravediggers had found a stranger buried in their dad’s grave, and that Thomas’ coffin was nowhere to be seen.

The graveyard in Wingate captured by drone Picture: SIMON MCCABE PHOTOGRAPHY

Now eight further graves have been dug up in the search for Thomas at Holy Trinity Church, Wingate, County Durham, and he is still yet to be found while Hilda is still being held at a funeral home six weeks on from her death.

Tom, 58, from Easington, told The Northern Echo: “We’re living on a day-to-day basis, hoping every phone call is the one to say he has been found.

“We can’t grieve for our mum because we’re up in arms dealing with this every day.

“She deserves to be buried alongside with dad but we don’t even know where he is, and the poor soul has been in a funeral home for six weeks now.”

Tom Bell, at the grave he believed his dad was buried at for 17 years. Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT

Tom and his sisters Denise, 59, and Debra, 53, sadly lost Hilda on June 16 aged 79, from COPD.

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The family had planned to bury her at the Holy Trinity Church after a funeral service on July 1 but Hilda had to return to the funeral home after the service.

Tom added: “They’ve already dug up eight graves and still can’t find him – it’s absolutely awful.

The graveyard in Wingate captured by drone Picture: SIMON MCCABE PHOTOGRAPHY

“They’re going to have to start digging down to check the name plates on every coffin. There are bodies all in the wrong places, it’s a mess.”

Last week The Northern Echo revealed that the family of a man who had been buried near to where Thomas Bell’s headstone had wrongly stood for 17 years had also been told of the distressing mix-up.

A spokesperson for the Durham Diocese, who look after burials at the Wingate graveyard, said: “We recognise the pain and distress that the families are going through and continue to pray for them at this difficult time.

"The Diocese of Durham is working with the appropriate legal authorities to ensure that this sad situation is resolved as a matter of the upmost urgency.”

Read next:

• Grahame Morris MP calls for investigation after Durham grave blunder
• Guisborough family warning as dog bitten by snake at Lockwood Beck
• Durham thief who starred in Channel 4 documentary Prison series jailed again

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