A RETIRED brother and sister have been handed a bill for £180 after the council declared their parents' gravestones were unsafe.

David and Caroline Probetts, 71 and 60 respectively, were distraught to discover a large sticker had been placed over the gold lettering on their mother and father's graves at Tower Hill cemetery in Witney, saying they needed urgent repairs.

The pair made the discovery over the Easter weekend and they are still trying to have the tape removed and the graves fixed.

Back in April Witney Town Council apologised for any offence caused, and said it would talk to the stone mason about attaching the stickers more discreetly.

The council ended up having hundreds of graves taped up for repair, but staff were not able to reveal a precise figure.

Miss Probetts, who lives with her brother, said it has been an ongoing hassle trying to sort out the issue of fixing the headstone.

She said: "Before Banbury Memorials could repair it we had to transfer the graves from mum's name to mine and David's names.

"They wanted a copy of their wills but of course they have been gone for five and 17 years so we didn't have them. So we had to go to a solicitors in Witney to do a statutory declaration.

"It was a lot of hassle for two people before anything could be sorted out. I feel so sorry for all the old people who have to go through this - it's disrespectful and upsetting."

Miss Probetts said she did not even know when the graves would be repaired.

She explained the problem apparently lay not with the headstone, but with the bed and how it had made the grave loose over time.

She added: "Banbury Memorials have said they'll repair mum's free of charge as it's been there less than 10 years, but we have to pay £180 for dad's, which is a lot of money."

Banbury Memorials were not willing to discuss any details concerning customers, when approached by the Oxford Mail.

Earlier this week fellow resident Rachael O'Malley took to Twitter questioning Witney Town Council's method of warning people about the unsafe graves, sparking fears that the local authority were still taping up headstones.

She posted a picture of a sticker on the bottom of a headstone and wrote: "Witney Town Council, how dare you."

But Polly Inness at Witney Town Council said no new stickers had been attached to graves, as work had finished within a week of starting at Easter.