Blackburn mum desperate to bring son's body home from Spain

The body of Neil Walker is lying in a morgue in Alicante, on the Costa Blanca, after the 37-year-old died in November.

But his mother Joan Crossland, 64, said her son’s lack of travel insurance meant she was facing a bill she cannot pay.

And the distraught pensioner said her son would remain in “cold storage” unless someone stepped in and helped her fly his body back to East Lancashire.

“All this has had a devastating effect on the family and I just want my son’s body back here so I can bury him,” said Mrs Crossland,of Pilmuir Road, in the Higher Croft area of Blackburn.

Mr Walker was raised in the Mill Hill area of Blackburn and was a former pupil of Witton Park High School.

He had been living in Clitheroe before moving out to Spain last summer, but was found dead at his apartment in Alicante on November 26 by his girlfriend, who had moved to the country with him.

Post mortem results into the cause of death proved inconclusive but his mother said she was satisfied with the investigation into his death and has not called for further inquiries.

Mr Walker was a joiner by trade, but his mother said he had not been working at the time of his death.

Mrs Crossland, who lives with second husband John, 73, said she had contacted the British Consulate in Spain to help her deal with the Spanish authorities but they had been able to do little to help her.

And she claimed she had been “left in the dark” over what her options were and was struggling to find out how she could bring him back.

She said: “He has been lying in a morgue in Spain for three months now which is terrible. The people at the morgue do not want to know because we don’t have any money to pay for him to be brought back.

“Me and my husband are both pensioners and do not have the means to get him home.

“It’s just dreadful what has happened and I hate to think that his body is laid out there in cold storage because we can’t afford the bill.”

Mrs Crossland added that she was concerned that the bill she would have to pay for the storage of her son’s body was increasing every day while she tried to find a solution to the problem.

Mr Walker is understood to have two young sons from a previous marriage, but his mother said he had not seen them in several years and she was unclear where they were now living.

She added: “He was a lovely lad and I just want to be able to bring him back to Blackburn and bury him, but I can’t and I don’t know what to do.”

The Foreign Office said it was advisable for all British nationals working or living abroad to have travel insurance in case tragedy struck.

A Foreign Office spokesman said: “We cannot pay burial, cremation or repatriation costs, but we can help to transfer money from friends or relatives in the UK.”