Thursday 6 October 2022 10:22 AM Daughter carried out 'Stone Age' burial for her father after keeping his body ... trends now
A daughter kept her father's dead body propped up in his favourite chair for days before secretly carrying out an illegal 'Stone Age' burial for him after rejecting modern medical help, an inquest heard.
Eirys Brett, 32, followed in the footsteps of father Donald, 78, to live a 'particularly alternative' off-grid lifestyle - and refused NHS care when he fell ill.
The inquest heard Mr Brett died and was left propped up in his favourite chair next to a woodburner for several days while his daughter and her partner dug a 6ft makeshift woodland grave.
He was buried in a red and turquoise bobble hat, red t-shirt and harlequin chef trousers. His body was wrapped in a hessian cotton blanket with rope wrapped in a cross pattern with paintbrushes, flowers and a poem in the grave.
Investigating officer Det Con Alex Stuart said: 'They had a ritual. He was not thrown in, he was strategically placed, it was a Stone or Bronze Age sort of burial, then they covered the hole.'
Eirys Brett, 31, pictured, carried out the secret countryside burial along with her partner Mark Watson, 46, but broke the law as she failed to legally register her father Donald's death
The inquest heard in the weeks before his death frail Mr Brett messaged his daughter to say: 'Maybe I should get NHS treatment' when he started suffering abdominal pain at home.
Eirys and her partner Mark Watson, 47, advised him against seeing a doctor and told him to take alternative medicines.
He came to stay at their home so they could help him but he became 'quite unwell' and died a short time later.
The inquest heard Mr Brett wished to be buried at his home - so the couple put his body in their red Vauxhall Corsa to drive to his cottage in June 2019.
DC Stuart said they put Mr Brett in his favourite chair before digging his grave 100 metres away from the house he had lived in for over 25 years in Aberedw, near Builth Wells, Powys.
He said: 'They started to dig around a 6ft burial site. It was not particularly wide. They dug it down over a number of days while Mr Brett was in his house.'
The inquest heard the alarm was
