Desecration of graves is an issue people find sickening and heartbreaking in equal measure. Many struggle to understand how in a so-called civilised society, anyone could stoop so low as to steal from or vandalise a person’s final resting place. Nothing, seemingly, is now sacred.

When damage is caused by the very authority charged with the upkeep of the site, it compounds the disbelief and hurt.

This week we highlight the distress suffered by a Keighley man who found the grave of his late wife in Utley Cemetery had been covered in a huge mountain of earth, from an excavation on an adjacent plot. Flowers and other sentimental tributes had been dumped in a pile.

Bradford Council is quite right when it says staff have to find a temporary home for displaced soil during the digging of new graves.

But surely there must be a better solution than unceremoniously piling it on a neighbouring, well-kept grave, an act that is quite clearly going to cause shock and deep upset to family members.

In a despicable double whammy, the same cemetery has been targeted by callous would-be thieves, who have removed stone from some of the monuments. Let’s hope the despicable culprits responsible for the attempted theft are brought to justice.