Families whose loved ones have died abroad claim they were failed the Foreign Office in a hard-hitting Parliamentary report.
Dozens of UK families feel betrayed including Clare Haughey MSP and her husband Paul whose son in Holland in July.
Paul told a cross-party group investigating the handling of deaths abroad that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) had been “worse than useless”.
He added that it “added stress and worry to the already existing traumatic experience”.
Clare, Minister for Mental Health, resorted to challenging the FCO after they told the media they were supporting her family when they were not.
The All Party Parliamentary Group on Deaths Abroad, Consular Services and Assistance (APPG) report noted: “Their response was along the lines of “sorry you feel that way”, a rather short and dismissive answer to a mother who had just found out about the death of her son.”
The couple said the lack of assistance was in sharp contrast to the Amsterdam Police who provided them with compassionate, regular support.
The APPG spoke to 60 UK families, including from Scotland, whose loved ones had either gone missing, been imprisoned or died abroad and their testimony was a damning indictment on the FCO.
Hannah Bardell MP set up the APPG after coming “against a brick wall” in seeking help for the families of her Livingston constituents Julie Pearson and Kirsty Maxwell who both died in suspicious circumstances abroad.
Bardell said: “When a death happens overseas, the family left behind must navigate a foreign legal system, a language they do not speak, a foreign police force, unfamiliar geography, insurance issues, costs of travelling to the country of death or imprisonment to collect the body of their loved one or to visit them in prison and media intrusion.
“On numerous occasions, we listened in disbelief as grieving parents or spouses told us about horrific events, feeling lost and abandoned and simply hoping for a kind word from someone who could help them.”
Families consistently spoke of a lack of compassion from the FCO with one family claiming an official put down an egg timer saying they had an hour.
Another family obtained their FCO file and found a handwritten note saying: “How do we shut this man down”? Most spoke about feeling like a “nuisance”, left abandoned with no help in navigating foreign systems while also tackling their grief.
Some were told there was nothing the FCO could do, while others reported being unable to get through to consular services, sometimes for two weeks.
Bardell said some of the recommendations would require legislation, for example, a legal right to consular services which she said many citizens would be surprised they don’t have.
She said some families have been forced to resort to crowdfunding in order to pay for repatriation of their loved one’s body.
The FCO was asked to comment but had not responded on Friday.
