Grieving families want 'fresh faces' on RPCV board but chair intends to fix problem

"There's a lot of emotional damage that's been done that they just can't fix," she said.

"Although they haven't removed anything else and will probably stop, what about all the items that've been thrown in the tip?"

Ms Jennings said she wasn't opposed to the cemetery trust's adornment policy, which sought to protect workers and visitors from dangerous items, but the removal of her family's items happened ahead of the advertised deadline and "made no sense" in terms of safety.

"There wasn't one safety issue with any of the things removed from my mum's grave. Nothing had deteriorated and the vase my brother bought had been there since 1997.

"It just doesn't make sense to me and I don't see how they're going to rectify the mental health issues and emotional distress of it."

"It hits you raw. It feels like it's all happened yesterday."

Ms Jennings and her brother both lodged complaints about the loss of items and had heard nothing back, she said.

"I've heard about people wanting to take class action and all these sorts of things. There's a lot of scarring and hurt there."

"I think the board all need to go because there doesn't seem to be much empathy there. It just needs some fresh faces and to be in touch with the community more about these policies."

IN OTHER NEWS:

While a statement from RPCV on Wednesday claimed that Eaglehawk was the only cemetery where gravesites were cleared of items, that was not the case, according to upper house MP Wendy Lovell, who had spoken to several Shepparton residents who had lost items from graves at the Pine Lodge cemetery.

According to MPCV any items missing from Pine Lodge had been lost in floods, with some that had been saved stored and available for collection but Ms Lovell said families told her the main part of the cemetery didn't flood.

"The families are most definitely saying the graves were cleared," she said.

Shepparton resident Kath Hilton, whose son's grave at Pine Lodge had flowers removed from it in January, labelled RPCV's denial as "a lie, which has only added to the distress".

Another parent, Ashlie Napolitana, said cemetery staff had informed her, when she rang to complain, that the grave of her 2-year-old son had mistakenly been stripped of teddies, toys and "knicknacks".

But the chair of the RPCV board, Marg Lewis, said the board was acting in good faith and the last thing it wanted to do was cover anything up.

She was confident the independent investigation by the Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust, which is due to report next week, would get to the bottom of what had occurred, and the board wanted to fix it, she said.

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