A Castelo Branco Funeral Home Named a Dead 19-Year-Old as the Driver of Its Speeding Van, and a Court Has Ordered It to Pay 36,770 Euros

A funeral home in Castelo Branco and its managing partner have been convicted of naming a dead 19-year-old as the driver of one of their vans after it was caught speeding. The Tribunal Judicial de Castelo Branco (Castelo Branco Judicial Court) ordered the company and the manager to pay 36,770 euros between them. Most of that is in criminal fines, and 14,000 euros goes to the young man's parents, who found out only when the road safety authority wrote to them months after his funeral.

The ruling was reported on Saturday by Notícias ao Minuto, citing CNN Portugal, which had seen the judgment. It is a first-instance decision, and it was not reported whether the defendants will appeal.

What happened

According to the prosecution's indictment, reported by Lusa when the case was brought in December 2025, one of the firm's funeral vans was caught by a speed camera at 16:38 on 31 December 2023 on the EN119 in Santarém. It was doing 102 km/h on a stretch with a 50 km/h limit.

On 12 January 2024 the firm, Funeralbi, arranged the funeral of Rodrigo Oliveira, a 19-year-old who had died in a road accident, and so held his identity documents. On 25 January the notice from the Autoridade Nacional de Segurança Rodoviária (National Road Safety Authority, ANSR) arrived asking the company to identify who had been driving. The managing partner filled in the form with Rodrigo's details.

The ANSR then sent the proceedings to the person named as driver, and the notice went to his family. It set out a fine of 300 to 1,500 euros and a driving ban of two to 24 months. The parents, whose son had died on the road, decided to take legal action. Their lawyer, Hélder Conceição, told Lusa at the time that they were indignant.

The Ministério Público (Public Prosecution Service) in Castelo Branco charged the company and its manager with forging a document and with using personal data for a purpose incompatible with the one for which it was collected. The indictment noted that the manager was the person responsible for collecting, processing and protecting the firm's customer data. Prosecutors also asked for the case to be reported to the Autoridade de Segurança Alimentar e Económica (Food and Economic Safety Authority, ASAE) and the Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados (National Data Protection Commission, CNPD).

The sentence

As reported on Saturday, the court found the facts proven and did not believe the manager's account. It described his testimony as hesitant, generic and lacking any confidence. The breakdown is:

• a fine of 21,000 euros for the company;
• a fine of 1,470 euros for the manager;
• 300 euros to the State, the value of the speeding fine the defendants avoided;
• compensation of 8,000 euros to the mother and 6,000 euros to the father.

Why it matters to families

When someone dies, the funeral director usually handles the paperwork: the death registration, the burial or cremation, and the documents that go with them. That means a family hands over the deceased person's identity card and other records at the hardest moment. The case is a reminder that a funeral home is bound by data protection law like any other business that holds customer data. Misuse can be reported to the CNPD, and a false declaration made using someone else's identity is a crime.

Families who receive an ANSR notice naming someone who could not have been driving can contest it with the authority and can report a false identification to the police or the Public Prosecution Service, as the Oliveira family did through their lawyer. For how death registration and funerals work in Portugal, see our guide to funerals and death registration.