A WIRRAL bride was left heartbroken after the wedding bouquet she left on her father’s grave at Landican Cemetery was dumped in a bin.

Joanne Mckeown says she was told by cemetery staff the flowers were taken off the grave because according to the rules they were “too big.”

She later found her floral tributes dumped in a nearby litter bin.

Wirral Council has apologised for the bride’s upset, but says it is confident no-one working for the local authority was responsible for the incident and that the flowers were "more likely to have been stolen."

Joanne married Stuart, her partner for three years, a fortnight ago. The following day she placed her bridal bouquet and two floral buttonholes on the grave of her dad, Phillip Dasher.

Just three days later she was told by a family friend who tends the grave the tributes had all been been removed and were in a nearby waste bin.

The loss was particularly distressing because one of the buttonholes had been made especially in memory of Joanne’s dad, who died from pneumonia in 1985.

Joanne, who has recently undergone surgery for an arm complaint, told the Globe that when she confronted cemetery staff they told her that as the bouquet was bigger than 18 inches it had "been removed and placed in the bin."

Mother-of-one Joanne, who lives in Wallasey, said: “I was heartbroken and mortified they could be so heartless and callous.

"It was a simple white bouquet that was in no way too big for the grave.

“When I first saw they were missing I thought they had been stolen, but to find they had been picked up and thrown in a bin is sickening.”

She continued: “Anyone could see it was a bridal bouquet and obviously had sentiment behind it.

"My dad died when I was 12 and it took all my courage to place my bouquet on his grave.

"I want a personal apology for the upset this has caused."

A council representative said: “Managers at Landican cemetery have spoken to Mrs McKeown and are now looking into this incident.

“However, what we can say with some confidence is that the flowers that she left at her father’s grave at Landican would not have been removed by any member of staff and just thrown in the bin.

“Even in the lawn grave parts of the cemetery, where the 18-inch restriction on memorials is in place, we always write to families first when issues arise so that they can make any changes themselves.

“As this grave is in the older part of the cemetery not affected by the restriction, it looks more likely that the bouquet and the button-holes  she left have been stolen.

“We are really sorry that Mrs McKeown’s understandable anger at the flowers going missing appears to have been compounded further by her being given incorrect information when she contacted the cemetery the first time.

“We do not know who it was that spoke to Mrs McKeown when she first called, but we would always expect staff to deal with complaints from members of the public in a sensitive and professional manner and fully investigate an incident such as this before responding.”