The family of a Green Island woman is distraught after her gravesite was damaged at the weekend, allegedly by a Dunedin City Council cemetery caretaker.
Rachel Walsh died on January 5 this year, and her remains now lie in a plot at the Dunedin City Council's Green Park Cemetery, near Waldronville.
Her son-in-law, Hayden Gibbs, said she had a large family and many grandchildren who visited her grave every Sunday.
The family had erected a small but temporary purple picket fence, and planted daffodils, pansies and cyclamens - her favourite flowers - in front of the plot.
Small tokens had also been left at the grave site to help her grandchildren remember her.
Mr Gibbs said the Dunedin City Council contacted the family six months ago, to ask them to remove the picket fence because it was too long and the caretaker's lawn mower could not move easily around the plot.
Instead, the family made the fenced area smaller, because they had paid for the plot and believed it was theirs to use as they wished.
"The fence covered an area half a metre by half a metre.
"There was plenty of room for a ride-on lawnmower to get around."
However, when the family went to the cemetery for their usual visit last Sunday, they found the fence had been ripped out and all the tokens had been left piled on top of the grave site.
"And the mower had just gone right over the top of the flowers."
Mr Gibbs said family members were very upset by the incident.
"We're still feeling pretty raw. As soon as we saw the damage, we all just started crying.
"It's disgusting. I've never seen a family so upset. They were just a mess.
"You would think a cemetery caretaker would be more sympathetic," he said.
Dunedin City Council Botanic Garden and Cemeteries team leader Alan Matchett said under council policy, no adornments were permitted on lawn cemeteries such as Green Park.
He said the fence was removed by contract staff, and the lawn was levelled and prepared for sowing with grass seed.
"I feel for them, but it is council policy.
"There's always room for improvement. What should have happened is family should have been advised again to remove the fencing.
"I apologise it wasn't handled better."
The DCC would now consider putting signs up in the cemetery to make the policy clear to the families of deceased, he said.
