A Death in Custody: Who Pays for the Funeral?

If someone dies in prison or in police custody, the state does contribute towards the funeral — but it does not pay for all of it, and the money is only part of the story. Where the death is in prison custody, the Prison Service will normally pay a contribution towards a reasonable funeral, up to a nationally set limit, while the family arranges the funeral and chooses the funeral director. Anything above that limit, and most of the extras a family actually wants, still falls to them.

A death in police custody works differently again. There is no standing, prison-style contribution, so the cost falls to the estate and the family in the ordinary way, with state help available only through the usual means-tested funeral payments. And whatever the setting, every death in custody is investigated: it is reported to the coroner, a post-mortem is usual, and an inquest is required. That process is why the funeral of someone who died in custody is so often delayed for weeks, sometimes longer, before it can even be booked.

This page sets out who pays for a funeral if someone dies in prison or police custody, what the family is left to fund regardless, and why the inquest sits in the middle of everything.

The short answer: the state contributes, but not for everything

The instinct after a death in custody is that the authority responsible must surely pay for the funeral, given that the person died in its care. That instinct is partly right and partly wrong, and the distinction matters.

For a death in prison, there is a genuine, standing arrangement: the Prison Service contributes towards the funeral. But it is a contribution towards a reasonable, simple funeral, capped at a set figure, not an open cheque, and it is paid on the basis that the family arranges the funeral in the ordinary way. The family remains in control of the arrangements — which funeral director, burial or cremation, the type of service — and in return they carry any cost above the contribution.

For a death in police custody, there is no comparable fund set aside to meet funeral costs. The responsibility for arranging and paying for the funeral sits where it would for any death: with the estate first, and personally with whoever signs the funeral director's contract. That is a hard thing to hear when someone has died in the hands of the state, but it is the legal position, and it is better to know it early than to assume a payment that is not coming.

What the Prison Service actually pays

The Prison Service's contribution towards a funeral after a death in prison custody is set as a national maximum, reviewed from time to time, and paid towards the funeral director's invoice rather than handed over as cash. Because the figure changes and is not something to plan around from memory, the right move is to ask the prison — usually through the family liaison officer appointed after a death in custody — what the current contribution is and exactly what it will and will not cover.

In practice the contribution is designed to meet the core elements of a straightforward funeral. What it is not designed to do is stretch to everything a family may want: additional cars, a larger service, flowers, an order of service, a headstone, or the wake afterwards. Those are the family's own cost. If the funeral chosen costs more than the contribution — and a burial in particular can easily do so — the family pays the difference, in the same way they would for any funeral where the money available falls short of the funeral chosen.

One point that reassures families: accepting the Prison Service contribution does not hand control of the funeral to the prison. You still instruct your own funeral director and make your own decisions. The contribution simply reduces the invoice you are left with.

Police custody is different

Where the death happened in police custody, or shortly after contact with the police, the funeral is funded through the ordinary routes rather than a dedicated contribution. The first source is the deceased's own estate — any money or property they left — and reasonable funeral costs rank ahead of most other debts when an estate is settled. Where the estate cannot stretch to it, the person who arranged the funeral is left carrying the cost personally, which is a heavier burden than most people expect when a death was not of the family's making.

State help, where it exists, is means-tested rather than automatic. A Funeral Expenses Payment in England and Wales, a Funeral Support Payment in Scotland, or the equivalent Northern Ireland scheme can help, but only where the person claiming is already receiving a qualifying benefit, and none of them meets the whole cost. If the family simply cannot front the money, the situation shades into the wider problem of what happens when the executor or next of kin cannot afford to pay the funeral costs up front, and the same options — a bank releasing money against the invoice, a means-tested payment, or the local authority stepping in — come into play.

Why an inquest delays the funeral

The single feature that sets a death in custody apart from most other deaths is the investigation that always follows it, and the delay that comes with it. A death in prison or police custody is not treated as routine. It is reported to the coroner, and because the person died in the care of the state, the law requires an inquest, frequently with a jury.

A post-mortem examination is the norm, ordered by the coroner to establish how the person died. The body is not released for the funeral until the coroner is satisfied that the examinations needed have been carried out, and in some cases a second, independent post-mortem is requested on behalf of the family or another interested party, which can add further time. Until the body is released, the funeral cannot be held — the family can plan, but they cannot fix a date.

It helps to separate two things that families often run together. The release of the body, which allows the funeral to go ahead, usually comes well before the inquest itself concludes. The full inquest — establishing the facts and, where relevant, whether anything should change — can take many months, but you do not have to wait for its verdict to hold the funeral. What you wait for is the coroner's release of the body, and the family liaison officer or the coroner's office can tell you where that stands.

Alongside the coroner, an independent investigation runs in parallel: the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman looks into deaths in prison custody, and the Independent Office for Police Conduct into deaths involving the police. These investigations are about accountability rather than the funeral, but they are part of why everything around a death in custody moves more slowly and formally than families expect. Free, independent guidance on what to expect is available from Citizens Advice, and charities that support the bereaved after a death in custody can help a family through the inquest process itself.

What still falls to the family

Whether the death was in prison or police custody, a predictable set of costs lands on the family regardless of any official contribution. Understanding them in advance stops them arriving as a series of shocks.

• Anything above the contribution. Where a prison contribution applies, it meets a simple funeral only. A more elaborate service, extra cars, flowers, printed orders of service and a memorial are the family's own cost.
• The wake and travel. No official contribution covers the gathering afterwards, or the travel costs of relatives coming from a distance, which can be significant where someone died far from home.
• A grave and memorial. Choosing a burial brings its own long tail of cost. Buying a grave does not buy the land outright but a right to be buried in it, as we explain in the guide to the exclusive right of burial and what it does and does not give you, and a headstone is charged separately again.
• The weeks around the death. The delay imposed by an inquest means the family is often carrying the practical costs of a death — travel, time off work, sorting the person's affairs — for far longer than in an ordinary bereavement.

If you are reading this because you want to make sure your own family would never be left short in a situation like this, cover that pays a cash sum on death gives them money they can use immediately for a funeral and the costs around it. You can get life insurance quotes and have an FCA-authorised broker explain how a straightforward term policy would work against your circumstances. This is background, not a recommendation about what you should buy.

If there is no family, or no money

Sometimes there is no relative willing or able to arrange the funeral, or the estate is empty and nobody can front the cost. In that case the funeral does not simply not happen. Where nobody arranges it, the local authority has a legal duty to arrange a burial or cremation, and where the death occurred in hospital after custody the hospital may become involved instead. The mechanics of that, and how it differs from a family-arranged funeral, are the same as for anyone who dies with no family to claim them.

This is also where questions of liability arise between relatives — who has to step in, and who does not. Being related to the person does not by itself make you liable for the funeral; liability follows the estate and the signature on the funeral contract, a point that recurs whenever someone asks whether they are responsible for the funeral of a relative they were estranged from. And because the money in an estate can take time to reach, the timing problem that dogs so many funerals — money existing but not being available when the invoice falls due, exactly as with a death in service payout that arrives too late for the funeral director — applies here too.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

The investigation of a death in custody differs sharply across the United Kingdom, even though the funeral funding position is broadly similar. In Scotland there is no coroner. A death in legal custody is reported to the Procurator Fiscal, and a Fatal Accident Inquiry, heard before a sheriff, is mandatory for deaths in custody. The Procurator Fiscal directs any post-mortem and authorises the release of the body, so the same pattern of investigation-before-funeral applies, run through a different system and by a different official.

In Northern Ireland the coroner system operates separately from England and Wales, and deaths in custody are investigated by the Prisoner Ombudsman for Northern Ireland or, for police contact, the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland. The state contribution towards a prison funeral and the means-tested funeral payments also operate under Northern Ireland's own rules through the Department for Communities. Wherever the death happened, the practical advice is the same: ask the family liaison officer for the current contribution and the likely timescale for the body's release, and do not fix a funeral date until the body has been released. The wider picture of what these costs look like is set out in our guide to funeral costs and who pays.

Frequently asked questions

Does the prison service pay for the funeral of someone who dies in custody?

The Prison Service will normally contribute towards a reasonable funeral where someone dies in prison custody, up to a nationally set limit, with the family arranging the funeral in the ordinary way. Anything above that limit, and most memorial, service and wake costs, still falls to the family. The contribution is paid towards the funeral director's invoice, so accepting it does not hand control of the arrangements to the prison.

Why does a death in custody take so long to reach a funeral?

Every death in prison or police custody is reported to the coroner and to an independent investigator, and an inquest, often with a jury, is required. A post-mortem is usual, and sometimes a second, independent examination is requested, so the body is released only once the coroner is satisfied. That release, which lets the funeral go ahead, usually comes well before the inquest itself concludes, but it can still take weeks.

Can the family choose the funeral director after a death in custody?

Yes. The family arranges the funeral in the ordinary way and instructs a funeral director of their own choosing, with any official contribution paid towards that invoice. Where no family comes forward to arrange things, the prison, the hospital or the local authority arranges a funeral instead, and the family then has no say over the date, the type of service or what happens to the ashes.