Council says sorry after sending school admission letters to parents of dead children
A council has apologised after sending school admission letters to children who had died.
Norfolk County Council mistakenly sent the correspondence to 41 grieving families inviting them to apply for a school place for their dead child.
A family who had lost two children received letters for both of them due to the error.
An invitation said a deceased child was “due to start school in a Reception class from September 2020 and it is now time for you to apply for a school place”.
An upset mum told the Eastern Daily Press the letter made her feel as if “someone was twisting the knife into an already broken heart”.
Another parent added: “It was awful. I just fell down and couldn’t stop crying.”
Councillor Andrew Proctor, leader of Norfolk County Council, said: “We are truly sorry for the pain and distress caused to the families who were mistakenly sent a schools admissions letter about their child who had sadly passed away.
“At the moment, our priority is contacting the families concerned so we can apologise to them directly.
“In terms of what happened, as soon as we found out the letters had been sent we launched an investigation through our internal audit department to ensure that such a mistake does not happen again.
“This should never have happened in the first place and we offer our most sincere apologies to all the families involved.”
Manchester City Council made a similar blunder last year in which the authority apologised after 95 school admissions letters were reportedly sent to grieving families.
