A WIDOW who went to Kingsdown Cemetery to lay flowers on her husband’s grave was distraught to find it buried under a mountain of earth.

The family of Trevor Mapstone has been visiting his grave every week since his death in November last year to lay flowers.

But they were shocked when they arrived on Sunday to find soil from a grave dug next door had been dumped on top of his carefully tended plot.

His daughter Glenis Yates said: “To jump out of the car and see that on top of your father’s grave is disgusting. You couldn’t even see his picture on the gravestone.”

“The whole family is distraught. It hit my mum Shirley hard. She broke down crying when she saw it. She didn’t sleep that night. She was thinking how disrespectfully her husband had been treated.”

Her brother Roy had been sent home from work because he was so upset about it.

She said the memorial, which cost the family £15,000, had been smeared with dirt and handprints. It had also started to sag at one end.

Mr Mapstone was diagnosed with cancer in August last year, the same month his daughter Gina Musselwhite died from breast cancer just a few days before her 54th birthday.

“Last year we had a hard time of it,” said Mrs Yates.

Her brother Darren said: “There is nothing behind my dad’s grave, it’s just flat land. They could have put it there. All they said was they did it all the time. There wasn’t any “we’re sorry” or anything.

If the cemetery staff had given them a call they would have avoided going to the grave until the soil had been cleared up, he added.

A Swindon Borough Council spokesman said: “A new grave at Kingsdown cemetery was excavated on Friday 16 September in preparation for a burial on Monday.

“The mechanical machine used to remove earth can only deposit to the right or left of a grave and earth removed often has to be temporarily placed on a near or neighbouring grave, as has happened on this occasion.”

He said: “This is normal practice within any cemetery and is a standard part of the Kingsdown cemetery regulations, which state that it may occur without prior notice.

“We realise it may be distressing for relatives who visit surrounding graves over the short period when an area is disturbed, but great care is taken to ensure that the area is returned to its original state as quickly as possible once a burial has taken place.”