Two funeral directors who kept bodies in an unrefrigerated room for more than a month have been found guilty of preventing a legal burial.
Richard Elkin, 49, and Hayley Bell, 42, were also convicted at Portsmouth Crown Court of intentionally causing a public nuisance and fraud.
Prosecutors said 46 bodies were kept in the unrefrigerated morgue at Elkin and Bell Funerals in Gosport, Hampshire, in 2022 and 2023.
The couple will be sentenced on February 19.
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Lesley Bates KC, prosecuting, previously said the bodies of two elderly people were found by bailiffs who were repossessing the premises due to debts including more than £13,000 in unpaid rent.
Bates said: “Water was coming in through a leak in the roof of the mortuary room and running down the walls.
“The room was not refrigerated. The temperature inside the mortuary room was no different than the rest of the facility.”
Bates said one body, that of 87-year-old William Mitchell, “showed obvious signs of decomposition” after being left in the room for 36 days.
He said Mr Mitchell’s family were “in disbelief” when they learned his body had not been cremated.
