A mother is devastated after a city council in Britain removed her deceased son’s headstone following a complaint from another family who said it wasn’t “in keeping” with their family member’s plot.
Max Corbett-Gardener was only 4 years old when he died from complications related to severe epilepsy. His mother, Jo Corbett-Weeks, scraped and saved for nearly three years to get a specially-made headstone of a teddy bear holding a star inscribed with a heart touching tribute to her son.
On what would have been Max’s seventh birthday, Jo had the headstone installed as a special present to him.
But just three days later, Jo returned to find the headstone removed from Max’s grave.
She told local reporters, “I was totally unaware this was going on. The council did not contact me and it was the stonemason who told me he’d been ordered to remove it.”
Jo says she feels upset, distressed and angry pointing out, ”We have been through so much as a family. I could understand if the grave was uncared for or unsightly, but it isn’t.
It turns out the council acted after a single member of another family with relatives buried in the cemetery.
Trying to justify the council’s decision a Malvern Town Council spokesman told the BBC, “We have a conformity of shapes in our lawn cemetery. We were contacted by people who objected to the shape. The longer it stayed up, the harder the process would have been.”