Exhumations

The petitioner wished to have the cremated remains of her father exhumed from the cemetery at Bedworth and have them reinterred with the remains of her mother, already interred in a cemetery in Nuneaton, where three adjoining plots had already been reserved for family interments. The Chancellor determined that this was an appropriate case to allow the removal of remains to a family grave, within  the guidelines laid down in Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299.

The Chancellor refused to grant a faculty for the exhumation of the cremated remains of the petitioner's son so that they might be placed in a niche or columbarium in the garden of the petitioner's home.

Faculty refused for exhumation of cremated remains from a family grave in one part of the churchyard to a double plot for cremated remains in another part of the same churchyard.

Faculty granted for the exhumation of the cremated remains of three family members from inside a church which had been closed for public worship, and reinterment in a family grave in a local cemetery.

The Chancellor refused to grant a faculty for the exhumation of the mortal remains of his grandparents and great aunt, who died in 1921, 1951 a 1954 resepctively, in order that the remains might be cremated and scattered in Golders Green Cemetery, as the application was "far outside of the exceptions to the general and important rule relating to the finality of Christian burial set out in the leading case of Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299, Court of Arches."

The 16 months old child of Italian parents living in England died following a fall whilst the family were on holiday in the Netherlands. The child’s cremated remains were brought back to England and interred in a consecrated part of East Sheen Cemetery. It was always the parents’ intention to move back to Italy and they treated the interment as temporary until they could return to Italy and inter the child’s ashes there. They were not told that the ashes were interred in consecrated ground and that exhumation from consecrated ground would not be granted unless there were exceptional circumstances. If they had been informed about the consequences, the parents would not have had their child’s ashes interred in consecrated ground. Upon an application by the parents for exhumation before returning to live in Italy, the Chancellor considered that a mistake had been made which would allow an exception to the normal rule against exhumation and he therefore granted a faculty.

The petitioner applied for a faculty to authorise the exhumation of a relative and reinterment in an adjoining grave. The relative had reserved two plots, one for her sister and one for herself. Owing to a mistake, the relative was buried in her sister's grave. The Chancellor determined that the mistake justified the grant of a faculty for exhumation and reinterment.

The petitioner applied for a faculty for the exhumation and reinterment of a body buried (due to an administrative error of the burial authority) in a grave reserved for a member of his family, as part of a block of graves reserved for the family. The Chancellor refused to grant a faculty on the grounds that (a) the desire of the petitioner's family to keep family burials in a rectangular block was just a 'personal preference', which was outweighed by the distress which would be caused to the family of the deceased and the Christian theology of the permanence of burial (the burial authority were willing to grant an exclusive right of burial for the petitioner's family in a plot adjacent to the 'block'); and (b) there had been a delay of one year between the burial in the wrong grave and the lodging of a petition.

The Petitioner sought a faculty to authorise the exhumation of the body of his father from the cemetery at Bloxwich, the interment having taken place in 1985. The Petitioner proposed that his father's remains should be reburied in a recently opened cemetery at Strawberry Lane, Cheslyn Hay, which had been laid out on land which the deceased had formerly farmed. After considering Re Blagdon Cemetery and other judgments, the Chancellor concluded that "the fact that a new cemetery or the like is created after the interment in circumstances where that new cemetery is thought to be a more fitting resting place for the remains in question than the place where they are interred will not, save in the most extreme of cases, be capable of being a special circumstance justifying exhumation."

The petitioners' daughter had died aged 20 in a car accident in 1988 and her ashes had been interred in the cemetery. The petitioners wished to exhume the ashes and reinter them in a full-size plot in the same cemetery, which would become a family grave. There was no evidence of an existing legal right to a grave which could become a family grave. The Chancellor envisaged that, if the petition were dismissed and a family grave was subsequently purchased, the situation would then be different. He was not satisfied that the present circumstances justified exhumation. However, he determined to grant a faculty (without limit of time), which would allow the exhumation and reinterment of the ashes at the time of the first burial of one of the family members identified in the judgment in a grave intended to be a family grave.