A dad said he is "distraught" after his son's grave was left in a mess by council workers.
Stephen Edwards, from Bootle, said that he went to visit his son's grave with his wife Patricia yesterday afternoon. However Stephen was distraught after he found his son's headstone covered in grass which had recently been cut.
Stephen said the "mess" is disrespectful to his son's memory and it happens every year. The dad-of-three claims he has complained to employees at the cemetery but they "keep making excuses".
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Stephen told the ECHO: "It is only one part of the cemetery, the side that runs down Menai Road and we are angry that we are going through this again. People are going to visit their loved ones and having to deal with that, it is just a disgrace.
"I can't understand why we are treated like this and my wife has to take cleaning materials to constantly clean up the mess. It is disrespectful to my son and every other family member who has to deal with it."
Stephen's son Stephen Jr died in 1988 at nine weeks old after complications from an operation. To make matters worse for Stephen Sr his son was part of the Alder Hey scandal in which organs of hundreds of babies and young children were kept without consent over a period of decades. Stephen Jr had to be buried twice before finally being laid to rest at Bootle Cemetery.
Stephen, a former fireman said: "Everything that happened was bad enough and he had a hard life for the time he was here. To see his grave like this is just so saddening. I just want him to be respected.
"All I would like them to do is clean up after themselves, it can't take much time to clean that one little part of the cemetery. I always wonder what my son would be doing now and it is still hard, it just does not go away, and then to see his grave like that makes it worse."
A spokesperson for Sefton Council said: "Grass cutting takes place across all of our cemeteries and crematoria with the exception of our wildflower meadows.
"As is common practice across the vast majority cemeteries in the UK, grass cuttings from freshly mowed lawns are naturally distributed back onto the surface to encourage regrowth, healthier ecosystems, and better biodiversity. This is known as ‘free spreading.’,
“We are sensitive to the feeling of everyone who visits our cemeteries and do not place cuttings on top of memorials under any circumstances. However natural factors such as wind may sometimes result unavoidably in small amounts of grass cuttings accumulating.
“We are not aware of any formal complaints being made to the Local Authority with regard to this type of ground maintenance, in particular at Bootle Cemetery."
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