Guidance

St Lucia: bereavement pack

Updated 23 September 2024

Disclaimer

This information is provided by the British Government for the convenience of enquirers, but neither His Majesty’s Government nor any official of the Consulate take any responsibility for the accuracy of the information, nor accept liability for any loss, costs, damage or expense which you might suffer as a result of relying on the information supplied. It is not a substitute for obtaining your own legal advice.

Information source: consular guidance and local information

The death of a relative or a friend is always a distressing experience. When the death occurs overseas, family and friends can feel additional distress as they are unfamiliar with procedures abroad. You may be uncertain about what to do next or who to contact for advice. The British High Commission Castries is ready to assist and provide advice where they can. We offer help which is appropriate to the individual circumstances of each case. We will make an assessment of the needs you have, based on who you are, where you are, and the support available to you. Our assessment will help us define the type of support that we can offer.

Whilst care has been taken in compiling these notes, no legal liability for their contents is accepted by the British High Commission or HM Government. The use of the terms body, body parts, remains, deceased etc. are not meant to offend you in any way. We realise that we are referring to your loved one and we mean no disrespect to the person you have lost.

Standard procedures – what happens when someone dies

When someone dies in St. Lucia and the next of kin is in the UK or abroad, St Lucian authorities normally notify the British High Commission Castries that the person has died, and they will do whatever they can to trace the next of kin as soon as possible and would ask the UK police to pass on the sad news. However you might also be notified about the death directly by someone else, for example a doctor, a social worker or a police officer. In St Lucia the seniority of next of kin is usually as follows:

• spouse/partner/civil partner
• adult child (over 18 years old)
• parent
• adult sibling (over 18 years old)
• an adult with sufficient relationship to the deceased
• an ex-partner is not regarded as next of kin

A relative or a formally appointed representative must instruct a local funeral director in St Lucia or an international funeral director in the UK for a body to be repatriated to the UK or buried or cremated in St Lucia. However if the deceased was insured you should immediately contact the insurance company to establish if they are able to cover for the repatriation expenses and make the necessary arrangements. You may need the insurance policy number and the associated 24hr medical emergency contact number to do this. If the travel insurance company confirm that there is a current policy, you should not appoint your own funeral director or be pressurised by local funeral agencies to do so. It will be the insurance company that will appoint the funeral director both locally and in the UK. If there is no insurance cover, unfortunately funds for repatriation or burial will need to be met by the family. The British High Commission Castries does not have budgets to meet these costs. A list of UK funeral directors and the major Lucian funeral directors associations are included at the end of this guide. In St Lucia it is not normally necessary for the deceased to be identified by the next of kin. Identification can be carried out by means of documentation such as a passport or driving licence, identification card or by fingerprints, dental records or DNA.

Local death certificate

Registration of the death

The St Lucia Authorities will issue a death certificate in English. This is likely to be issued within 2 days of the post-mortem. Local death certificates will show details of cause of death. The local death certificate will be accepted in the UK.

Deaths in St Lucia may be registered with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office in the UK. This form of death registration is not compulsory. However, the advantages are:

• you will have a British form of a death certificate
• a permanent and accessible record of the death will be kept at the General Register Office in the United Kingdom.

To receive a British form death certificate, an application should be made online at www.gov.uk/register-a-death. There is a statutory fee for this which is payable online when making the application.

Although not obligatory, it is possible to register the death of a British national who has died in St Lucia with UK authorities. Full information on how to apply for the registration of a death is available at this link: https://www.gov.uk/register-a-death

British passport cancellation

In order to avoid identity fraud a deceased person’s passport should be sent to the British High Commission Castries in St Lucia together with the death certificate and D01 form or direct to HM Passport Office in the UK. The form can be obtained on the link below. Next of kin can request the passport to be returned after cancellation. Likewise, if the passport has been lost or mislaid, relatives should get in contact with either the High Commission or passport office for instructions on reporting the loss of the passport.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/what-to-do-with-a-passport-when-the-passport-holder-has-died

Repatriation

If the deceased was covered by travel insurance, the insurance company will normally have a standing agreement with an international funeral director in the UK to arrange repatriation. If the deceased was not covered by insurance, you will need to appoint a local undertaker in St Lucia or an international funeral director in the UK.

Prior to issuing death certificate, a doctor will sign a letter confirming there are no communicable diseases and an embalmer certifier verifies and signs embalming documentation. Once this has been carried out satisfactorily the funeral directors will make arrangements for repatriation.

There are facilities in St Lucia catering for Christian, Muslim, Hindu and Jewish burial. There are also cremation facilities. If a local burial or cremation takes place, it will not be possible for an inquest into the death to take place in the UK. Although the undertaker cannot begin preparing the body until the local coroner has released the body, the funeral director can provide guidance and can organise the necessary local documents. Embalming, which is a more complicated procedure, is optional and is more expensive. Please note that in the case of a sudden death, when a UK Coroner might request an autopsy in the UK, embalming might hinder some of the autopsy results.

If the decision has been made to cremate locally and the next of kin wish to transport the ashes to the UK in person this is possible. We advise to check in advance with the airline about specific airline restrictions. The ashes may be shipped, if so the same procedure as shipping a body is taken, where you would call in advance and set up the shipping. If the ashes are transported by plane, then the person taking the ashes needs to have with them, the death certificate, the cremation certificate and a transient permit.

Clothing and personal belongings

The funeral home will arrange for the deceased to be repatriated in the clothes they were wearing and arrange for the deceased personal effects to be returned with the deceased body at an additional cost. Personal belongings found on the deceased at the time of death are either handed over to the family, if they are present, or taken by the police. If the next of kin chooses repatriation, it is advisable to instruct the local undertaker to collect the belongings from the police and to ship personal belongings together with the body. If there is an investigation into the death, the deceased’s clothing can be retained as evidence and is not returned until the court case is finished.

Local burial

If you choose a local burial, you will need to instruct a local funeral director and they can make the necessary arrangements with either a private of government owned cemetery. A ceremony can be organised by the funeral director or a registered celebrant. You can make specific arrangements depending on your cultural and/or religious beliefs.

Local cremation

If you are thinking of arranging a local cremation, please take advice from your local funeral director. You can make specific arrangements with your funeral director depending on you cultural and/or religious beliefs. Ashes are only permitted to be scattered in the sea, the ashes must be scattered a specific distance away from shore and therefore a boat is required for this to be done.

Autopsy/post-mortem

In St Lucia a post-mortem is carried out to establish the cause of a sudden death. Post-mortems are usually carried out within 5 days from the deceased being placed in the mortuary. A copy of the death certificate is provided to the next of kin. A copy of the post-mortem report is not usually provided to the family. The British High Commission can request a copy on behalf of the next of kin, although it is more usually done on behalf of the local British Coroner conducting an inquest into the death. There have been no documented cases of a hospital or mortuary seeking to retain organs of foreign persons, either with or without the consent of the next of kin. There are mortuary facilities at the Victoria Hospital, which maintains a limited number of cold storage areas. All major funeral directors in St Lucia maintain cold storage areas also and, except in a case where mass casualties may arise, these facilities are adequate.

Inquests

In the event of a suspicious death, the Police will carry out any preliminary investigations. If they are unable to establish a criminal cause of the death, a magistrate will order a coroner’s inquest. Coroner’s inquests can be slow and, in certain cases, can take up to two years before they are completed. The coroner will compile a report. This is not usually provided to the family, but the British High Commission may request a copy on their behalf. If the Police believe criminal activity is involved they will complete the investigation and pass the file to the Director of Public Prosecutions Office (DPP). When/if the DPP is satisfied there are grounds for prosecution, a Preliminary Enquiry will be opened in the Magistrates Court. Both the Prosecution and Defence are invited to give evidence. When the Enquiry is completed the Magistrate will assign the case to the assizes in the High Court. The Prosecution can request that a committal be made on papers, however the Defence Counsel must agree to this. The Police do not normally pass a copy of their investigative file to the family and requests from the British High Commission to obtain such files have been turned down in the past.

Legal aid

St Lucia placed a reserve on the right to free legal assistance when acceding to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in 1973. Therefore free legal assistance does not exist in St Lucia. Defendants may make a case to the Court for legal assistance but approval is rare and usually limited to cases of murder involving family members.

Compensation

As far as we are aware, there is no Government criminal compensation scheme in existence in St Lucia.

Release of information

Access to information concerning a death is restricted until a Coroner has reviewed the evidence such as post-mortem and police reports. The St. Lucian authorities will usually not provide this information directly to next of kin, or to third parties, including our High Commission, until after the conclusion of the preliminary investigation. The release of any information will usually take several months and in some more complicated instances, years.

Organ donation

St Lucia does not register or donate organs and tissue.

Donation of bodies to medical science

In St. Lucia, body organs or tissue are not donated to medical science after death.

UK coroners

The Coroner in England and Wales is obliged by law to hold an inquest into the cause of any unnatural or violent death of a person whose remains lie in his or her area, even if the death occurred overseas and a post-mortem has already been carried out before repatriation of the remains to the UK. Coroners may order a second post mortem (ie subsequent to the first post mortem carried out abroad), as part of the inquest and it is at this stage that families are often made aware that organs have been removed and not replaced. Coroners can request copies of post-mortem and police reports from the Saint Lucian authorities via the Foreign Office. However, these will only be provided once any judicial proceedings are completed. In some instances this can take many months. UK coroners can compel witnesses to give evidence from England and Wales but not from abroad.

In Scotland, the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) deals with the investigation of all sudden, suspicious, accidental, unexpected and unexplained deaths which occur in Scotland. However, the COPFS does not have the jurisdiction to investigate deaths that occur outside Scotland apart from in a few limited circumstances. Generally, those circumstances include terrorism, cases where the death may have been caused in Scotland but the person died outside Scotland and cases where the death was as a result of murder or culpable homicide caused by another British citizen or subject.

Coroners in Northern Ireland are not obliged to hold an inquest into cause of death. However, next of kin can apply for a judicial review if no inquest is held. There will be no Coroner’s inquest when the remains are buried or cremated locally. Further information about the role of UK Coroners is available on the FCDO publication: Guide for Bereaved Families.

Local funeral homes

Rambally’s Funeral Parlour is the main undertaker handling repatriations to the United Kingdom. They work in conjunction with the appointed International Undertakers (Rowland Brothers), and have a great deal of experience in ensuring things go smoothly.

Josie Biscette-Moore
Rambally’s Funeral Parlour
Calvary Road
Box 1688
Castries
St. Lucia

Tel: (758) 452 2021/mobile: (758) 719 4895

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