News of the shocking find quickly spread online, which is where Sapphire first saw her father’s business being raided.

The now 28-year-old mum says after reading the disturbing details she was horrified, but claims no one in the family that she’s kept in contact with was surprised, adding: “He’s manipulative, narcissistic, and a pathological liar.”

Estranged from her father Richard for nearly a decade, Sapphire claims his disturbing behaviour stretched back years.

Richard had always worked as an undertaker – a career Sapphire believes may have stemmed from the traumatic death of his own mother when he was a child.

“His mum died of leukemia when he was about eight,” she said.

“He never really talks about it, but I don’t know if that’s why death has always intrigued him.”

Growing up, Sapphire says she always knew her dad was “weird”, and claims her childhood suffered as a result.

After years of an unhappy home life, her parents split up, leaving Sapphire and her younger brother seeing their father for just four hours every Sunday.

Those visits were often strange and unsettling, she claims.

She said: “[His visits] were never fun – it just felt like something we had to do. We might go to McDonald’s, maybe sit in the car park and eat.”

But on other occasions, things allegedly took a far darker turn, Sapphire claims.

Richard would often take Sapphire to work with him – and deliberately shock her with the bodies he handled, she says.

When she was six, she claims he took her to the morgue and showed her a body.

“I remember him vividly – an old man in a grey suit with a flower in his pocket,” she said.

“I wouldn’t show my six-year-old child a body. Whether I worked in the industry or not is irrelevant.

“In the long run, it’s definitely messed me up.”

On one occasion, Sapphire claims she was forced to clean bodily fluids from the back of her father’s private ambulance.

She said: “It was after we collected someone from Southampton. They’d rolled over and purged – basically stomach contents coming out of both ends.

“I didn’t have a choice. He told me I had to.”

She was just 10 years old.

Another time, she claims she helped prepare the body of a war veteran for a grieving family by arranging his medals, positioned his hands and combing his hair – before being hidden upstairs when the grieving relatives arrived.

At the time, she enjoyed feeling helpful, but now that she’s older she realises just how disturbing it was and the terrible lack of transparency with the family.

“I would not be impressed at all if I knew a 10-year-old child had helped prepare my granddad, dad or uncle, and was then sat upstairs while I came to see them,” she said.

While some funeral businesses are family-run, which can normalise death for younger people, Sapphire believes her experience crossed a clear line.

“As I’ve got older, I’ve realised how wrong and disrespectful it is – to the deceased and their families,” she said.

At home, Richard’s alleged obsession with death was impossible to escape, his daughter says.

Sapphire describes “creepy” decorations throughout the house, including a large collection of macabre dolls.

He proudly displayed the Living Dead Dolls – eerie, gothic figurines designed to look like zombies, clowns, and vampires, some with fake blood dripping down their faces, she claims.

“They really creeped me out. Some were even life sized,” she said.

But the most disturbing feature was a full-size coffin in the living room – engraved with his own name.

Sapphire said: “He always said it was his favourite – I don’t know if while he was working he’d seen this coffin and liked it and thought, ‘yeah, I’d want to be buried in that one’ and ordered it for himself.”

He even decorated his car like a hearse – complete with skeletons, flowers and skull ornaments, she claims.

She said: “He had two full sized skeletons in his car, flowers that ran across the dashboard, and even a little skeleton hanging from the rear view mirror.

“He’s always done that, using skulls and skeletons as a decoration.”

Now, after years of estrangement, last month Sapphire finally watched her father face justice from the public gallery alongside the family of the victims.

She said: “This is the first time this man has ever had any form of consequence in his life.

“I was glad to see him finally have some comeuppance for all the things he’s done in his life.”

Richard Elkin and his partner Hayley Bell were jailed for four years – but for Sapphire – and the grieving families – the case has exposed something far bigger.

She said: “Hopefully this changes things. The industry needs proper regulation and funeral homes need regular inspections. This should never be allowed to happen again.”