Grieving widow Nita Lankford was devastated when bungling crematorium staff scattered her husband's ashes - and then couldn't tell her where they were.

Now Oxford Crematorium has apologised and agreed to move the family memorial plot to the area where the ashes were spread.

Mrs Lankford's husband Norman died of a heart attack in June, aged 76. With the help of daughter Pamela Todd and son Paul Lankford, she chose a memorial stone and instructed the crematorium that Norman's ashes were to be scattered on the family plot. The crematorium said the headstone would not be ready for eight weeks and promised the ashes would be kept until then so that all the relatives could be at the ceremony. But then the family heard the terrible news that the ashes had been scattered by mistake.

Crematorium bosses admitted the mistake but could not reveal the precise location of the ashes - just that they were somewhere in the East Daffodil bed.

Mrs Lankford, 72, of Morrell Avenue, Oxford, was too distressed to talk but Ms Todd said: "My mother had just started to pick up the pieces following Dad's death but all this just knocked her right back down.

"By their negligence they have taken away the last chance we had to say goodbye to my father. The family are very distressed."

Ms Todd, 47, of Glenmore Road, Carterton, added: "We went to a meeting with managers and it was awful. They apologised but tried to blame everyone else."

She said the crematorium had offered suggestions including putting up a memorial plaque or bench where the ashes are scattered.

In the end the family agreed to have the rest of the family plot moved to where where the ashes were scattered.

Chris Johns,operations director of Service Corporation International which runs the crematorium in Bayswater Road, Headington, said: "We did write to the family expressing our obvious concern and apologies. The mistake was made. It was a human error and no-one is trying to hide the fact."

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