THE Co-operative Funeral Service has spoken out to reassure Swindon customers after a bungle which meant the wrong coffin was sent to a funeral.

Although the mix-up happened in Cheltenham, the service has a branch in Commercial Road and has arranged funerals for generations in Swindon.

The firm is investigating what happened in Chelten-ham and has pledged to learn from it and review procedures.

Head of corporate marketing Peter Couchman said disciplinary action against those involved had not been ruled out.

Co-op staff took the wrong coffin to a funeral to be blessed prior to cremation, then realised their error and compounded it by taking the right coffin to the funeral for blessing.

The net result was that one of the two deceased involved was cremated without relatives being present at the service and without being blessed under their own name.

Mr Couchman said: "Our reputation is built on having a passionate commitment to getting things right.

"While we are extremely concerned by this incident, we are seeing it as a one-off which was down to human error. We have never had an incident like this before, and it is going to be our intent that it never happens again.

"We will be taking lessons from this."