Bankstown funeral mix-up: Euro Funeral Services linked to earlier mistake

A south-west Sydney funeral parlour has been caught up in a second body blunder after another woman came forward with a tragic mix-up story.

A Sydney woman has detailed the horror of hearing her mother’s screams after the wrong body was placed in a coffin at her grandmother’s funeral a decade ago.
The woman, known as Vicki, came forward after the same funeral parlour made the same mistake last week during a funeral at St Euphemia Greek Orthodox Church in Bankstown.

Euro Funeral Services Principal Spiro Haralambous said it was an accident and that the company would implement safeguards to make sure it wouldn’t happen again.

Euro Funeral Services in Roselands.

However, another woman, Vicki, said her family had been through the same issue with Euro Funeral Services in 2008.

“When my grandmother passed away we had a viewing two nights before the funeral. It was an open casket and my family discovered they were saying goodbye to the wrong lady,” she told 2GB.

“When the service was over we were invited up to the casket to say our final goodbyes. My 80-year-old grandfather went up and he was supported by my aunt and uncle and he stood over and he said his goodbye and kissed this lady’s hand.

“Meanwhile my aunty who was slowly registering and in shock said this may not be my grandmother.

“My mum came up and, to this day, I can still hear the shrill of my mum’s screaming ‘that’s not my mother’.”

The principal of Euro Funeral Services Spiro Haralambous has since apologised to two families after two bodies were placed in the wrong coffins at their funerals. Picture: Supplied

The woman said her family is still traumatised by the event and did not want to be named out of respect for her grandfather.

He was so distressed, distraught and ashamed because he had not recognised the woman was not his wife, she said.

Vicki said she wanted to tell her story because she did not want another family to go through the same situation.

Mr Haralambous told The Daily Telegraph they had changed their methods since the incident in 2008.

“We apologised at the time,” he said. “Before 2008 we used to remove the hospital tags from the body because they were too confronting for the families and now we leave them on.

“There were no other incidents besides the one last week and the one in 2008.”

Yesterday, the funeral service principal said last week’s incident was an accident.

“If I could turn back time, naturally I would. I’m extremely apologetic for what has been inflicted on them (the families),” he told 2GB’s Ben Fordham.

“I wouldn’t want this to happen to me. It was an error. Among the many thousands of funerals we have done this was an error and now the family are traumatised due to us”.

He has not made any comment about the 2008 incident yet.