Moment grieving relatives were dragged out of cemetery in clashes with police

Angry scenes broke out in a cemetery yesterday after grieving family members clashed with police and council officers over the removal of garden tributes around headstones. 

A large police presence converged at Mill Lane Cemetery in Stockport, Greater Manchester, on Wednesday morning as a small crowd of angry grave-owners gathered at the gate to the cemetery, remonstrating with enforcement officers.   

Some were allowed inside to collect their belongings, but clashes continued. At one point, a grieving father had to be restrained by police officers in a heated exchange. 

Last month, Stockport Council insisted that plot owners were already signed up to its policy around large garden tributes and the local authority was acting within its rights by removing them. They added that the vast majority of bereaved families adhere to the rules already.  

But distraught residents argued that some of the gardens at Mill Lane Cemetery had been well cared for for more than a decade.  

Kelly Pullen from Cheadle said: 'We own rights to those graves, we paid for our loved ones to be buried so we should be able to do what we want with them. 

'This is a place that brings us comfort, we've decorated the graves of our loved ones and they're taking that away.  It's the fact about all the police presence, have they not got anything else to do?' 

Another family member, Gaynor Bradburn whose mother has been buried in the cemetery for 14 years, described the incident as 'horrendous'. 

She said: 'I've been sent a live video and it's absolutely horrendous. It's heart-breaking, they're not letting anybody in and everybody's obviously very very angry and upset.

'It's absolutely disgusting that they can do that. To have the amount of police there is unbelievable, it's absolutely horrendous.' 

Despite the clashes, no arrests were made by the police present, a Greater Manchester Police

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