“My daughter say ‘Mum not my father this one … another man’,” Ms Nicolopoulos recalled.
Both families had used Euro Funeral Services at Roselands. It emerged Mr Nicolopoulos body had been mistakenly buried at Rookwood Cemetery following a funeral service at All Saints Greek Orthodox Church in Belmore earlier on Friday.
The Greek Herald reported mourners of the other man were not aware of the mixup until his body was exhumed from the ground at Rookwood on Friday afternoon.
Both men were returned to their correct families and laid to rest in small ceremonies with their families later that day.
Euro Funeral Services director Spiro Haralambous told Ben Fordham on 2GB on Wednesday morning he had apologised to both families and offered both a full refund and regretted their “process of healing is going to be a little bit longer than it would be normally”.
Mr Haralambous said the casket had entered the church open but the error had only been picked up when the daughter approached to have her final look.
“It was only at the end when the family as a whole came up to pay their respects … that they realised this is not dad,” he said.
“[The] process of healing is going to be a little bit longer than it would be normally.”
Euro Funeral Services director Spiro Haralambous
The error had occurred because the men died on the same day and the wrong lids had been placed on their identical coffins.
“If I could turn time back to reverse this trauma, naturally I would,” Mr Haralambous said.
“This was an error, and unfortunately this family is now traumatised due to us … not picking it up in the morning when we left our funeral home. We are guilty as charged.”
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