A GRIEVING family waited nearly 18 months for the woman who stole their 88-year-old mum’s funeral flowers to get the sentence she deserved.
But then Scotland’s justice system decided to let the thief walk out of court without any punishment.
Gail Lafferty went into a garden of remembrance at a crematorium and stole wreaths spelling out the words “Mum” and “Granny” left by relatives of cancer victim Margaret Mitchell.
It took the system almost a year-and-a-half to bring her case to court.
And a Justice of the Peace yesterday admonished her, meaning she was not jailed, fined or given any other form of punishment.
Instead, Lafferty was told to pay the family the £300 the flowers cost.
Margaret’s daughter Margaret Young told the Record her family had been “cheated out of justice”.
She added: “Stealing from the dead is the lowest of the low. You have to be the scum of the earth.”
Lafferty, 46, and another woman stole the flowers on July 8 last year, hours after the pensioner’s funeral at Seafield Crematorium in Edinburgh.
Margaret had died of cancer of the oesophagus. Her family cared for her at home in her final days.
Relatives went to a reception after her funeral. They returned next day to collect the flowers before burying her ashes, but found them gone.
Staff said someone had come in after the funeral and taken them.
Margaret’s daughter looked at CCTV to try to identify the thieves.
She said: “We could see two women rooting through the flowers, then struggling to carry them away because they were so big.”
Staff had installed the CCTV after a spate of flower thefts. They suspected someone was taking tributes to sell.
Police were called. And a week later, Lafferty and the other woman returned to the crematorium.
Staff challenged them about why they were taking flowers and they claimed to be flower arrangers.
Lafferty was arrested.
Margaret Young, a care worker, said the theft devastated her dad Robert.
“They had been married 55 years and were devoted,” she added.
“It sickened him to watch the theft on CCTV. He chose the flowers.”
After the theft, Robert fell and broke his hip while walking to the shops to pay for the flowers Lafferty stole.
He had surgery but suffered blood poisoning and died of a heart attack in September last year, aged 84.
Edinburgh Justice of the Peace Neil Morrison noted the distress Lafferty had caused Margaret’s family, then admonished her.
Lafferty admitted theft but claimed she took the flowers by mistake.
