By CHRIS BROOKE

Last updated at 20:58 13 August 2007

An undertaker smuggled a dead pensioner's life savings out of his home in the bag carrying his body.

Maurice Bartlett, 58, wedged £2,000 in £20 notes under the corpse after spotting the cash on a bedside cabinet.

He also helped himself to 120 cigarettes, then zipped up the bodybag and wheeled the remains of 75-year-old Hubert Golledge from his sheltered accommodation flat.

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Bartlett later gave the cigarettes to his colleague David Dicks, 54, who had been chatting to care workers outside the flat.

Yesterday, Judge Julian Lambert at Bristol Crown Court described the pair's actions as "vile and despicable" after Bartlett pleaded guilty to theft of the money and cigarettes.

Dicks, who knew nothing about the money, admitted stealing the cigarettes.

Mr Golledge, a retired painter and decorator, died of leukaemia in June.

The undertaking firm MK Smith was called in and Bartlett and Dicks arrived at the warden-controlled accommodation in Redfield, Bristol, to take the body to a mortuary.

The thieves were caught when care staff - who had seen the cash while looking for details of Mr Golledge's next of kin - noticed it was missing.

Judge Lambert told the undertakers: "This was a low and despicable crime. Your conduct was quite disgraceful. Your actions were a vile affront to the deceased and all standards of decency."

Both men have been sacked by MK Smith.

After hearing of Bartlett's previously unblemished career and that Dicks was the carer for his stroke-victim wife, the judge said such "exceptionable circumstances" meant he would impose community orders.

But he added: "You will hang your head in shame."

Bartlett, of Kingswood, Bristol, was sentenced to six months in jail, suspended for two years. He was fined £2,000, plus £100 costs and ordered to do 200 hours' unpaid work.

Dicks, of Upper Easton, Bristol, was ordered to do 200 hours' unpaid work.

The stolen £2,000 had been recovered, the court heard.

James Byrne, defending Dicks, said: "The theft was a one-off moment of madness."

Adam Vaitlingham, for Bartlett, said: "He has lost his career, his reputation and his self-esteem."

Mr Golledge's sister condemned Bartlett's sentence as a "shameful let-off". Margaret Roberts, 74, said: "My brother was such a kind and gentle man, he knew he was ill and had even been making preparations for his own funeral.

"The man who took the money should have been locked up.

"If this was in a foreign country he would have had his hands cut off, and rightly so."