Woman who lost a loved one tried to break into Carlisle crematorium

Fifty-year-old Kerry Conway’s illegal act while inebriated landed her in front of city magistrates.

They heard how police received a call from the occupant of a property on Dalston Road next to the council-owned site just before midnight on January 24.

“An officer attended and saw Kerry Conway standing next to the smashed window of a caretaker’s house of the cemetery,” said prosecutor Peter Bardsley. “She was crying and saying ‘sorry’.”

The caretaker involved later spoke of being in bed at around 11-30pm and just about to sleep when he heard the front door of his address “rattling”.

“He could see the defendant. She was shouting ‘open the door’,” said Mr Bardsley. “She left the garden and started rattling the cemetery gates.”

Conway then returned to the house and smashed the window with the palm of her hand. She started banging on the side of the window “asking to be let out; as if she thought she was inside the cemetery”, said the prosecutor.

Conway had also been asking to be let into the site as she had lost somebody close to her.

“She was asked if she had been drinking and she said that she had,” said Mr Bardsley.

In an impact statement, the man had said: “As a result of the crime I am more anxious than I have ever been especially when I am leaving the house.”

His family had become more cautious and security conscious, and he added: “Our day-to-day activities have changed.”

Conway, previously of Winscale Way, Carlisle, admitted a charge of criminal damage.

Giving mitigation, defence solicitor John Smith said a number of things had happened to Conway at around that time. She appeared to have been the victim of an assault shortly before causing the damage.

“She had something to drink. She had lost somebody. She was trying to get into the cemetery,” said Mr Smith. “It was quite clearly not deliberate,” he added of the damage. “It has got to be reckless.”

Magistrates imposed a £40 fine and ordered Conway to pay £100 compensation.