'Grim eater' banned from funerals

Danny Langstraat, a director of Harbour City Funeral Home in Wellington, said his company finally became so irritated with the intruder's behaviour that it took a photograph of him, which it distributed to its branch offices.

The firm also alerted grieving families to his presence.

"He was showing up to funeral after funeral and, without a doubt, he didn't know the deceased," Mr Langstraat said.

"We saw him three or four times a week.

"Certainly, he had a backpack with some Tupperware containers so, when people weren't looking, he was stocking up," he told the Dominion-Post newspaper.

Mr Langstraat said the man, in his 40s, was respectably dressed and did not look like someone who lived on the streets.