A BEREAVED mother has spoken of her anger after she was told to take mementos away from her dead baby's grave.

And Samantha Hawke has vowed to continue leaving gifts on her son's grave after staff at Burnley Cemetery removed the items.

The 23-year-old, of Chapel Street, Nelson, buried her five-week-old son, Connor Earnshaw, last June after he died from Gaucher disease, an inherited, enzyme deficiency disorder.

She regularly visits the grave, leaving things like teddy bears, but says she was told by a manager the items had been taken so the grass could be cut.

Miss Hawke said: "It's madness that you can't put anything on the graves and it made me and my partner so angry."

"I am going to continue putting gifts down - I won't let them stop me.

"Last Wednesday I got a call from my sister saying I had to take everything off the grave. There was a letter on the grave saying we have to remove whatever is on it within one week.

"I rang the cemetery and the manager and he said you are not allowed anything at all. It's not that much to ask to let me put stuff on my son's grave."

Last week Burnley Council, who run the cemetery, said they had removed gifts after Christmas and put them into a secure compound for collection.

In January Pendle Council proposed to enforce rules which would have meant no extra tributes, including stone edgings and ornaments, could be placed at the graves. Council bosses made the move in a bid to make it easier to mow the grass and maintain Walton Lane Cemetery, in Nelson.

But the council was forced to withdraw the proposals following protests from bereaved parents.

Councillor Roger frost, executive member for leisure and culture, said: "In the area near the crematorium they have to remove things because people put flowers on the lawns and these are damaged when the flowers die."