Britain’s biggest funeral firm has been accused of treating the dead with shocking disrespect and stacking bodies ‘like television sets’ at industrial-scale storage units.

Instead of being kept in a chapel of rest before burial or cremation, the dead are kept among ‘rack upon rack of bodies’ in a warehouse-style ‘hub’.

An undercover investigation revealed overworked staff were ‘treating bodies like luggage.’

In one incident four bodies had to be transported in the same van and the lid was taken off an elderly woman’s coffin so they could all fit.

The woman’s nose was almost touching the shelf above and when the body was unloaded in view of a block of flats a member of staff held the lid over the coffin to ‘preserve some dignity’.

Co-operative Funeralcare, which has 900 funeral homes across the country and last year made a profit of over £52million, has apologised for bad practices revealed in Channel 4’s Dispatches programme and has launched an internal inquiry.

Click through for the rest - the programme is on Channel 4 tonight and I shall most definitely be watching!