Funeral home stops 'fake mourner'

A New Zealand mortuary has stopped a "mourner" who attended up to four funerals a week to eat the finger food available, despite not knowing the deceased.

The man is believed to have gatecrashed a number of churches and other funeral venues in the Wellington area and to have brought containers with him to take food away, The Dominion Post reports.

Harbour City Funeral Home director Danny Langstraat said: "He was showing up to funeral after funeral, and without a doubt he didn't know the deceased.

"We saw him three or four times in a week. And certainly he had a backpack with some Tupperware containers so when people weren't looking, he was stocking up."

The man stopped visiting the funerals after a member of staff took him aside to tell him that while he was still welcome at the funerals he was not allowed to take food off the premises.

Funeral Directors Association president Tony Garing added: "If it's in a church, or even in a funeral home, if a notice has been published in the paper, it's essentially a public event. That makes it a bit hard to keep people out."