People who lost thousands of pounds after the collapse of a pre-paid funeral firm have hit out at the “tiny” sums they are set to be repaid after three years of waiting.

Some 46,000 people invested in a fund to cover the future cost of their funerals with Safe Hands Plans Ltd before the company fell into administration in 2022.

The administrator for Safe Hands, FRP Advisory, has said planholders could receive initial repayments – of between 8.5p and 12.5p for every pound they lost – by the end of June.

“Getting some money back is better than nothing – but it’s a slap in the face,” Denise Hudson, who shelled out nearly £2,500, said.

The 58-year-old, from Derby, paid for a Safe Hands plan in 2017 after seeing the firm advertised on television, and said she thought her investment was “foolproof”.

She is among planholders who are owed an estimated £70.6m in total.

A major fraud investigation into the dealings of Safe Hands, and its parent company, SHP Capital Holdings Ltd, was launched in October 2023.

In October last year, in an update to creditors, FRP Advisory said there would be repayments.

Then, on 3 January, administrators confirmed planholders will get some money back – adding what people will get back is above the rate of 1p to 10p per each pound lost in typical administration cases.

But Ms Hudson said: “We paid in full. We need the full money back.

“We put our trust in people and we have all been let down.

“Everyone will still lose an awful lot.”

Ms Hudson said she had to deal with the death of her mother Daisy and brother Rupert in 2024 as she was trying to get her money back.

“[Mum] had a brilliant funeral plan and that saved us a lot of time, everything was set out,” she said.

“I thought that is what would happen with me.

“Nobody would have had to go to any trouble, everything would have been sorted out – but that wasn’t to be.”

She accused Safe Hands’s bosses of doing “an underhanded, ruthless thing”.

“It’s appalling they could take people’s hard-earned savings,” she added.

“I did think I had done everything right. I did do my homework.

“I felt embarrassed more than anything else – that I’d handed my money over and lost it. Now just anger is left.”

Since July 2022, pre-paid funeral providers have required approval to operate from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA).

Safe Hands was one of dozens of companies operating in the previously unregulated sector, and collapsed four months before the measures came in.

In 2017, Sandie and David Beatty, from Bingham in Nottinghamshire, paid Safe Hands £3,395 to cover the funeral costs for the first of them to die.

Mrs Beatty, 73, said they felt “angry, disappointed, sick” when the firm collapsed.

“Compared to what we put in, what we’ll get back is a tiny amount,” she said.

“When we get it, it might be enough to buy a pizza, and we’ll have a little party.

“For us, it’s not about the money now. We just want someone to be held to account.

“Our money went somewhere.”

Mr Beatty, 80, said: “There’s nothing we can do about it. We want justice but realistically we won’t get our money back.

“People have been taken for a ride and that stings.”

Aimee Geary, 50, from Anstey in Leicestershire, paid £3,000 to Safe Hands in 2017.

The NHS worker said she took out the plan because she thought funeral costs would rise in the future.

“I felt quite happy,” Ms Geary said. “Other people thought I was young [to be planning my funeral].

“They thought I was mad. I’m very organised, and I didn’t want anyone else to have a job when I’m not here.

“It’s sad that you try to plan something and it has been taken away from you.”

She was told, in 2022, she would probably get £1 out of every £100 back.

“I’m disappointed,” she added. “Somebody else has to now find the money and arrange my funeral when I’m not here because I would never buy another [funeral plan].”

Heather Mould, 77, and her partner Mike took out Safe Hands plans in 2017 – each paying £3,500.

Mrs Mould, from Allington in Lincolnshire, said: “It was quite a loss when you are on a pension.

“We were told we might get back 10p in the pound. It’s something, but it’s not a lot.

“I felt let down but we were pleased to find out before either of us had died so we could arrange something else.”

FRP told the BBC the Safe Hands administration case had been “complex” and had required extensive legal action both in the UK and abroad – including in the Cayman Islands – to trace funds that are due to creditors.

It said it had so far recovered £11.4m for planholders and was focused on getting the best return for them.

FRP said it was “working towards” making an initial distribution to planholders before the end of the second financial quarter in June 2025, and had ringfenced a minimum of £1.6m to that end.

“While we understand the current estimated return of 8.5p to 12.5p in the pound still represents a significant loss to planholders, it’s important to note this exceeds the typical returns in administration cases, where unsecured creditors usually receive between 1p to 10p in the pound,” a spokesperson said.

The administrator said its continuing efforts were running parallel to the ongoing Serious Fraud Office (SFO) investigation.

The spokesperson added: “We fully understand and deeply sympathise with the distress Safe Hands planholders are experiencing.

“The loss of funeral plan savings has created significant worry for many families, and we take our responsibility to recover funds for planholders extremely seriously.”

The SFO confirmed it was progressing an active criminal investigation into alleged fraud by Safe Hands Plans Limited and its parent company SHP Capital Holdings Limited.

A spokesperson said: “We recognise there is significant public interest in this case and are committed to sharing further information as soon as possible.”

Both former owners of Safe Hands – David Milson and Richard Philip Wells – were contacted for comment by the BBC but have not responded.

The world’s largest iceberg is on a collision course with a remote British island, potentially putting penguins and seals in danger.

The iceberg is spinning northwards from Antarctica towards South Georgia, a rugged British territory and wildlife haven, where it could ground and smash into pieces. It is currently 173 miles (280km) away.

Countless birds and seals died on South Georgia’s icy coves and beaches when past giant icebergs stopped them feeding.

“Icebergs are inherently dangerous. I would be extraordinarily happy if it just completely missed us,” sea captain Simon Wallace tells BBC News, speaking from the South Georgia government vessel Pharos.

Around the world a group of scientists, sailors and fishermen are anxiously checking satellite pictures to monitor the daily movements of this queen of icebergs.

It is known as A23a and is one of the world’s oldest.

It calved, or broke off, from the Filchner Ice Shelf in Antarctica in 1986 but got stuck on the seafloor and then trapped in an ocean vortex.

Finally, in December, it broke free and is now on its final journey, speeding into oblivion.

The warmer waters north of Antarctica are melting and weakening its vast cliffs that tower up to 1,312ft (400m), taller than the Shard in London.

It once measured 3,900 sq km, but the latest satellite pictures show it is slowly decaying. It is now around 3,500 sq km, roughly the size of the English county of Cornwall.

And large slabs of ice are breaking off, plunging into the waters around its edges.

A23a could break into vast segments any day, which may then hang around for years, like floating cities of ice cruising uncontrollably around South Georgia.

This isn’t the first huge iceberg to threaten South Georgia and Sandwich Islands.

In 2004 one called A38 grounded on its continental shelf, leaving dead penguin chicks and seal pups on beaches as massive ice chunks blocked their access to feeding grounds.

The territory is home to precious colonies of King Emperor penguins and millions of elephant and fur seals.

“South Georgia sits in iceberg alley so impacts are to be expected for both fisheries and wildlife, and both have a great capacity to adapt,” says Mark Belchier, a marine ecologist who advises the South Georgia government.

Sailors and fisherman say icebergs are an increasing problem. In 2023 one called A76 gave them a scare when it came close to grounding.

“Chunks of it were tipping up, so they looked like great ice towers, an ice city on the horizon,” says Mr Belchier, who saw the iceberg while at sea.

Those slabs are still lingering around the islands today.

“It is in bits from the size of several Wembley stadiums down to pieces the size of your desk,” says Andrew Newman from Argos Froyanes, a fishing company that works in South Georgia.

“Those pieces basically cover the island – we have to work our way through it,” says Captain Wallace.

The sailors on his ship must be constantly vigilant. “We have searchlights on all night to try to see ice – it can come from nowhere,” he explains.

A76 was a “gamechanger”, according to Mr Newman, with “huge impact on our operations and on keeping our vessel and crew safe”.

All three men describe a rapidly changing environment, with glacial retreat visible year-to-year, and volatile levels of sea ice.

Climate change is unlikely to have been behind the birth of A23a because it calved so long ago, before much of the impacts of rising temperatures that we are now seeing.

But giant icebergs are part of our future. As Antarctica becomes more unstable with warmer ocean and air temperatures, more vast pieces of the ice sheets will break away.

Before its time comes to an end though, A23a has left a parting gift for scientists.

A team with the British Antarctic Survey on the Sir David Attenborough research vessel found themselves close to A23a in 2023.

The scientists scrambled to exploit the rare opportunity to investigate what mega icebergs do to the environment.

The ship sailed into a crack in the iceberg’s gigantic walls, and PhD researcher Laura Taylor collected precious water samples 400m away from its cliffs.

“I saw a massive wall of ice way higher than me, as far as I could see. It has different colours in different places. Chunks were falling off – it was quite magnificent,” she explains from her lab in Cambridge where she is now analysing the samples.

Her work looks at what the impact the melt water is having on the carbon cycle in the southern ocean.

“This isn’t just water like we drink. It’s full of nutrients and chemicals, as well as tiny animals like phytoplankton frozen inside,” Ms Taylor says.

As it melts, the iceberg releases those elements into the water, changing the physics and chemistry of the ocean.

That could store more carbon deep in the ocean, as the particles sink from the surface. That would naturally lock away some of the planet’s carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to climate change.

Icebergs are notoriously unpredictable and no-one knows what exactly it will do next.

But soon the behemoth should appear, looming on the islands’ horizons, as big as the territory itself.