Exhumations

The petitioner's mother died in a motor accident in 2000. The petitioner's father had been in such a state of shock that he had left it to a family friend to arrange the funeral. Notwithstanding that the father and his three daughters were all atheists, the family friend arranged for burial in the consecrated churchyard at Charlwood. Each member of the family had never been happy with this and had only recently found it possible to discuss the matter together. They now wished the mother's body to be exhumed and cremated, and the ashes scattered elsewhere. The Deputy Chancellor considered the guiding principles laid down in Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299 and concluded that this was an exceptional case where exhumation should be allowed: " ... I am persuaded that there was a fundamental mistake of intention in this case ... For a family of conscientious atheists, Christian burial was not the right choice. The daughters have tried very hard to honour and make sense of their mother’s memory through the medium of her grave, but they reached a point whereby the thing which should provide some solace was doing the opposite."

Interments of two family members had taken place in the same grave in 2012 and 2013. After the second interment there had been only a foot of earth over the second coffin, and in the course of time the second coffin had become exposed. An application was made for a faculty to authorise the exhumation of both coffins from the family grave and for re-interment of both coffins in the same grave in another part of the churchyard. The Chancellor determined that there were special circumstances to justify him permitting both coffins to be exhumed (even though the first coffin could have been left in situ with a sufficient covering of earth) and for them both to be re-interred in a new family grave.

The petitioner applied on behalf of her mother to have the cremated remains of her father exhumed from his burial plot and reinterred in another plot. Interments of cremated remains in the churchyard normally allowed for 18 inches of spacing between memorial plaques, so that visitors did not tread on memorials. At the time of the interment, the proximity of the petitioner's father's grave plot to neighbouring plots had been obscured by a green carpet laid over the neighbouring plots. It later became apparent that there was insufficient space to tend the plaque laid on the plot without stepping on neighbouring plaques, and there was evidence that the petitioner's father's plaque had been trodden on. This was very distressing for his widow. The Chancellor considered that the problem had arisen because of an unfortunate mistake as to spacing by those responsible for laying out the plots and he considered therefore that the granting of a faculty was justified.

The cremated remains of a child who died within hours of a premature birth in the 1980s had been interred in the churchyard. The petitioners (the father of the child and his three daughters) wished to have the remains exhumed with a view to them being reinterred in the father's garden. The father's wife had expressed a wish before her death to be buried in the garden with the remains of her deceased child. The Chancellor could find no justification for allowing the exhumation and reinterment of the child's remains as proposed, but he granted a faculty authorising exhumation, provided that permission could be obtained for the remains of the child and both parents to be interred in the churchyard of the church where the mother's funeral had been conducted or in some other consecrated ground.

The Chancellor determined that exceptional circumstances existed to justify the proposed exhumation of the cremated remains of a young man from the churchyard in Kenilworth for reinterment in the same grave as his late parents (or in the next grave) in a churchyard in Norfolk, the Chancellor noting similarities between the circumstamces in this case and those in the case of Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299.

The petitioner sought permission to exhume the cremated remains of each of her parents from the churchyard of St. Nicholas Radford (the church itself having been demolished), so that the remains could be taken to Oakley Wood Crematorium for interment or scattering next to a family memorial bench commemorating the petitioner’s husband. The cremated remains of the petitioner’s mother and father had been interred in 1991 and 2001 respectively. The petitioner stated that she found it too far to travel to the churchyard. The Crematorium advised that its grounds were unconsecrated; that only scattering was allowed; and that no permission could be given for relocation of the memorial stone. The Chancellor refused to grant a faculty. Difficulty in travelling to a grave was not a sufficiently exceptional circumstance to justify an exception to the normal presumption of permanence of burial. Moreover, the petitioner’s father had clearly wished his cremated remains to be buried in the same grave as the remains of his wife, rather than be scattered.

The petitioner wished to exhume from the churchyard the ashes of her father, who had died in 1991, and to reinter the ashes in Crowle Cemetery, where the ashes of the petitioner’s recently departed mother were to be interred. In 1991, Crowle Cemetery did not have an area set aside for cremated remains, but now there was such an area, and the family wished to ensure that the petitioner’s parents were buried together. The Chancellor was satisfied that exceptional reasons existed in this case for an exhumation to be permitted.

A mother wished to have her son's body exhumed from the churchyard of St. Patrick Earlswood and reinterred in a churchyard in Ireland, where she now lived. Here reason for the request was that if her son;s body remained in England, she would have difficulty in visiting and tending the grave regularly. The Chancellor refused to grant a faculty. The petitioner had not shown any exceptional circumstances to justify the grant of a faculty.

The petitioner’s son committed suicide in 2013. The family had lived since 1971 at Blackmore in Essex. The petitioner’s son’s ashes were not buried in Blackmore, because it was alleged that the then incumbent would not conduct a funeral there. The Petitioner and her husband therefore arranged for their son’s ashes to be buried at Bentley Common, where other members of the family had been buried. After the death of her husband, whose ashes were buried at Blackmore, the petitioner wished to have her son’s ashes exhumed and buried in his father’s grave, where the petitioner also wished to have her own remains buried in due course. The Chancellor decided that there were special circumstances to justify the grant of a faculty: the petitioner’s son had never lived at Bentley Common, nor indicated that he wished to be buried there; Blackmore was his home; reinterment at Blackmore would create a family grave; and at the time of the son’s death the situation at Blackmore had been far from ideal.

The petitioner, on behalf of herself and her six siblings, sought a faculty to authorise the exhumation of her brother's cremated remains from their parents' grave and reinterment in a nearby new grave. The deceased's daughter, believing it had been her father's wish to be interred with his parents, had arranged the interment without consulting the deceased's siblings, who only learned about the interment after it had taken place. It caused them great distress that there had been another interment in their parents' grave. The Chancellor was satisfied that there were exceptional circumstances to justify exhumation, as the grave had "become a focus of disquiet and grievance amongst the family members with a real degree of distress to some."