Moment police find rotting bodies in decrepit mortuary where ‘evil’ funeral directors left 46 people to decompose warm rooms – as they are jailed for four years

This is when police entered the morgue where ‘evil’ funeral directors had left 46 decomposing bodies to rot in a hot room.

Between June 2022 and December 2023, Richard Elkin, 49, and Hayley Bell, 42, ran a rundown funeral directorate where bodies were stored in conditions as hot as 15°C when they should have been stored at 4°C in a bid to ‘reduce the business’s running costs’.

Today they were both sentenced to four years in prison after being found guilty of deliberately causing a public nuisance, obstructing a lawful burial and dealing with the intent to defraud creditors.

During a series of victim impact statements read at Portsmouth Crown Court this morning, a grieving mother who was a friend of Bell described how she was denied the chance to hold her dead baby Albie after the defendants locked the baby’s body in a coffin. The baby died when he was only 11 minutes old.

In another incident, the duo failed to purchase a coffin for an elderly man and left his decomposing corpse in an uncooled morgue room with water dripping from the walls.

Footage released by Hampshire Police shows the moment an officer walked into Elkin and Bell’s funeral directors in Gosport, Hampshire, in December 2023.

The officer later made the grisly discovery that multiple bodies were kept in a warm room with a bucket on the floor to collect water from the leaking ceiling.

He can be heard saying that ‘there may be some crimes’ because the bodies were not cooled; Elkin and Bell claim that there is a ‘cooling system’.

Hayley Bell (pictured), 42, of Elkin, ran a subpar funeral directorate where bodies were stored in conditions as hot as 15°C when they should have been stored at 4°C, in a bid to ‘reduce the business’s running costs’.

The police officer replies, “It’s definitely not cold, there’s water dripping from the ceiling or something.”

In the video, the dire conditions at the workplace are clearly revealed, with piles of garbage as well as visible dampness and holes in the ceiling.

Elkin shouted ‘I hope you’re happy’ in the public gallery as he was being taken down, Portsmouth Crown Court heard.

During the hearing, the defendant had to be removed from the chair because he shouted at family members who had previously testified.

The couple were also banned from running a company for seven years.

Judge Newton-Price KC said: ‘No sentence can reflect the worth and worth of the bodies neglected while in Elkin and Bell’s care.

‘The sentence I gave is not the measure of this and can never be.

‘[The son of one victim] He said he disappointed his father. He did not fail his father in any way. You did it.

Elkin shouted ‘I hope you’re happy’ in the public gallery as he was taken down, Portsmouth Crown Court heard

Terrible conditions in Pait’s morgue, damp and mold visible on walls

Elin and Bell continued to provide services despite knowing that the business, which has gone bankrupt since 2019, would not be able to fulfill its obligations

‘[Another victim] left with putrid odors, shed skin and maggots. Autopsy confirmed the advanced state of decomposition. The skin on both of his hands was completely peeled off.’

The judge said he heard ‘distressing’ statements from the families and that the bodies were in an ‘advanced stage of decomposition’.

Earlier, prosecutor Lesley Bates KC said Bell and Elkin committed “serious and far-reaching” criminal acts, taking advantage of the “lack of regulation of their trade” while running a funeral parlor together.

The court heard that the 46 people who died had caused “inner distress” to their families, with some confused as to whether the ashes they received belonged to their loved ones.

During the pair’s trial, jurors heard bailiffs who visited Elkin and Bell Funeral Homes after debts soaring to £20,000 found bodies in bags ‘riddled with maggots’ and containing ‘fly pupae’.

Others had ‘widespread mold growth’ and the morgue had a ‘horrible smell of corpses’; The two were hiding in a room with no cooling system and water leaking from the ceiling.

A body found during a visit in December 2023 had been left there for 36 days and was badly decomposed at that time. The other belonged to an elderly gentleman whose family believed he was cremated.

Jurors were told the firm, in Gosport, Hampshire, has been bankrupt ‘almost since it started in 2019’ and its business model was so unregulated it was a case of ‘robbing Peter to pay Paul’.

The judge said Elkin and Bell (pictured) were guilty of a “profound” breach of the trust placed in them by their relatives

A casket seen at Elkin and Bell Funerals. Funeral directors left 46 bodies to rot in a hot morgue

The judge concluded: ‘You consistently neglected your duty to adequately cool the bodies over a period of time.

‘You could not provide adequate cooling because you were trying to reduce the operating costs of the business.

‘You gave the wrong impression to Environmental Health officials by keeping incorrect records of daily temperatures’

‘You gave EH officials the wrong impression by removing or concealing the body of a boy in your care, particularly on the day of the inquest on 6 July 2023.’

He added that Elkin and Bell’s actions ‘represent a profound breach of the trust the relatives place in you to treat the deceased with the care, respect and dignity to which they are entitled’.

“Your conduct was not deliberate, but was extremely reckless in relation to the decomposition of the bodies and was so reckless as to cause serious distress to members of the public who saw any bodies or could smell the foul odor of decomposition,” he continued.

‘The damage is obvious. ‘This was the serious and lasting pain you inflicted on the bereaved families.’

Corrinne Boulton was shocked to learn her young son Albie had been removed from the funeral parlor when investigators visited.

Richard Elkin, 49, appears at Portsmouth Crown Court this morning to be sentenced.

A police spokesman said: ‘Another family had entrusted Elkin and Bell with the care of their baby, whose body was brought to the morgue on 5 June 2023, and it was documented in morgue records that the body remained there until 13 July.

However, on July 6, Environmental Health officials came to the scene and stated that there was no body in the morgue and asked where the baby’s body was. ‘The family still has no answer to this terrible question.’

Deputy Chief Constable Tony Rowlinson of Hampshire Police said: ‘Elkin and Bell have completely breached the trust of those who turned to them in mourning.

‘This is one of the worst betrayals I have seen in my police career.

‘There are now families who know the extent of the malpractice that goes on and how their loved ones are being treated. However, there are also families whose questions are still unanswered.

‘Elkin and Bell have robbed anyone affected of the chance to say goodbye to their family or friends in a respectful and dignified manner and this is simply inexcusable.’

Andrew Eddy, of the Crown Prosecution Service, said: ‘Today’s sentencing marks a significant moment; ‘For the first time, funeral directors have been held criminally liable for refusing families a legal and dignified burial.’