Liverpool council call for formal apology over stillborn baby graves
Kris Brown/InstagramLiverpool councillors have called on the government to apologise in parliament to families for the historical practice of not telling parents where babies who were stillborn or died shortly after birth were later buried.
Before the 1980s, stillborn babies were taken away and families were not given any details of what happened to their bodies or where they were buried.
In April, before Wednesday's cross-party vote in Liverpool, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said the historical practices were "appalling" and should never have happened.
The DHSC said a dedicated government team had been established to look into the matter, and an update would follow. The former Health Secretary Wes Streeting had previously promised to meet with campaigners, such as Gina Jacobs, Merseyside founder of Gina's Sleeping Babies Reunited.
"To date, no such meeting has happened, and a new Secretary of State has been appointed," the council agenda noted.
Wednesday's motion, proposed by councillor Kris Brown and seconded by councillor Carl Cashman, was approved without debate on, following cross-party agreement.
The motion highlighted "the historical handling of stillborn babies by public authorities was a cruel violation of human dignity that has caused decades of unresolved trauma, grief, and anger for families across Liverpool".
In an Instagram post after the meeting, Brown said it had been passed "unanimously by all parties".
"This transcends party politics," he said.
The practice was common long before the creation of the NHS, under successive Conservative, Liberal, and Labour governments.
The council's chief executive will be tasked with writing to the health and justice secretaries seeking a formal government apology.
The correspondence will also urge government to honour the previous health secretary's pledge to meet with campaigners, request national funding to retrieve burial records, and call for a comprehensive review into the historic directives that led to these practices.
The council cannot require the government to take those steps.
Brown said the motion was about underscoring compassion and openness, rather than assigning blame.
He said he was first approached by constituents Eddie and Linda Bruchez, who had been searching for answers about their son.
The motion commits the council to continue waiving fees for cemetery record searches, grave location requests, and deeds of burial for those affected families.
It also says the council should work with campaigners, community organisations and faith groups to establish permanent memorials in Liverpool's cemeteries.
No funding or timetable was set out.
Gina Jacobs, from Greasby in Wirral, found the precise location of her son Robert's grave at Landican Cemetery in 2022, 53 years after he was stillborn.
He had been buried in a shared grave with more than 60 other babies.
Jacobs said she was not allowed to see or hold her baby after his birth in 1969 and had been led to believe he was buried with an adult whose funeral took place at about the same time.
She began searching after seeing a BBC report about another bereaved mother who had found her baby's grave.
Asked how discovering the location had made her feel, she told BBC Radio Merseyside: "Very hard to describe how it made me feel because there was an overwhelming surge of emotion."
She has since set up Gina's Sleeping Babies Reunited, helping other families search for burial places and calling for an official apology.
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