'They have desecrated my mum and dad's grave'

Jane-Anne Montgomery hit out following a recent visit to lay flowers at their grave side in Port Glasgow Cemetery on her mum's birthday.

The shocked Greenock mum turned up to find the stone had been lowered to the ground by council workers the same day.

Now she is threatening to take legal action against the local authority.

Jane-Anne, from Gilmour Street, said: "I am utterly disgusted, their actions are appalling.

"The attitude and the actions taken have been cold, callous and cruel.

"They have desecrated my mum and dad's grave.

"They had no right to do this.

"I went to the cemetery to put flowers at the graveside on my mum's and I was shocked to find the council workers there at the time and they had pulled it down.

"I am looking at taking legal action."

Jane-Anne says she confronted the council workers who were there at the time.

Her mum Jean died in May 2017 and she was laid to rest alongside her late husband Ronnie, who passed away in 1983.

Jane-Anne said: "We were told at the time my mum died, by a stonemason, that the headstone was sound.

"The council have completely adopted the wrong approach.

"I am now campaigning for a more moral compassionate approach so that other families do not suffer in the same way."

Several grieving relatives have raised concerns about the council condemning headstones at the cemetery.

A number of memorials have had yellow warning stickers slapped on them.

Last year Inverclyde Council announced that they had compiled a safety check of all the headstones in their cemeteries.

A spokesman said: "We lay dangerous gravestones flat for a very good reason.

"In 2015 a child was killed when a monument fell on him in a Glasgow cemetery.

“We do our best to approach this matter in a sensitive way but our overriding concern has to be the safety of the people who visit our cemeteries and the people who work in them.

“We work closely with families to make sure they know it is their responsibility to look after their loved ones’ headstones and where possible we also contact relatives before we take action.

“Following safety tests it was found that Jean and Ronnie Montgomery’s headstone was dangerous.

"We wrote to Ms Montgomery on 2 August asking her to take action to repair it and wrote to her again on 22 August.

"We then had a meeting with her at the cemetery and told her that we would have to lay the stone down because it was still dangerous.

"This was done on 21 February 2019.

“At any time Ms Montgomery can re-instate the headstone as long as it is done safely.

“We have to act where a memorial is dangerous.

"We appreciate that people may be unhappy about this and we apologise sincerely if it causes any upset.

"We understand how difficult it can be for families to see a memorial to a loved one laid flat and we want to help people deal with their dangerous memorials as quickly as possible.”