Judgment Search

Downloads

Click on one of the following to view and/or download the relevant document:

Alphabetical Index of all judgments on this web site as at 10 September 2024

Judgments indexed by Diocese:
2023 Judgments
2022 Judgments
2021 Judgments

Re Bognor Regis Town Cemetery [2024] ECC Chi 3

A man had died in 2023 and, the whereabouts of any relatives being unknown at the time, those who took on responsibility for his burial arranged for him to be buried in a consecrated part of the Bognor Regis Town Cemetery. When the man's family became aware of the burial, they applied for a faculty to allow them to exhume the deceased's body, to have it cremated and then to scatter the ashes elsewhere. The reason given by the family for their application was that the deceased had been a lifelong atheist and would not have wished to be buried in a Christian burial ground. The Chancellor decided that the Christian burial had been a mistake and he therefore granted a faculty for exhumation and disposal of the deceased's ashes in due course as the family thought fit.

Re Borough Cemetery Hounslow [2021] ECC Lon 4

The son of the petitioner, who was of the Sikh faith, was stillborn 40 years ago. Owing to the petitioner's atate of health and shock at the time, the funeral arrangements were left to other members of the family, and the body of the stillborn was buried in a coffin in a consecrated part of the cemetery by a Sikh priest, because there was no area in the cemetery set aside for burials of those of the Sikh faith. Had the petitioner known at the time that Cremation was an option, she would have had her stillborn son cremated and his ashes taken to India for scattering on an Indian river in accordance with the Sikh her faith. The Chancellor acepted that the petitioner had been haunted all her life by the lack of choice she had had in the way that her stillborn son's funeral was dealt with and her own wishes had not been fulfullied, so that, as she faced her own mortality, she was now troubled by a desire to have her son's death commemorated in the way she would have wished, in order to give her peace in her remaining years. The Chancellor decided that ther were exceptional circumstances to justify granting a faculty, subject to the conditions listed in the judgment.

Re Botcherby St. Andrew [2016] ECC Car 3

The petition proposed various items of reordering. The Victorian Society had initial reservations about the removal of all but two pews and the replacement of the pews with upholstered chairs, but later withdrew their objection in favour of solid wood (unupholstered) chairs. The Society also objected to the carpeting of the nave and the erection of a partition to create a meeting room, WC and kitchen. The Chancellor granted a faculty subject to a condition that the replacement chairs should be of solid wood and not upholstered.

Re Bourne Abbey [2012] Mark Bishop Ch. (Lincoln)

The petitioners wished to have the cremated remains of their father exhumed from Bourne Abbey and reinterred in a cemetery in Harlow, where their mother's cremated remains had been interred following her recent death. Upon consideration of the guidelines laid down in the Court of Arches decision in Re Blagdon Cemetery 2002 Fam 299, the Chancellor determined that this was a case where an exception could be made to the presumption that burial should be treated as final, as the remains of the petitioners' father would be reinterred in a family grave.

Re Bowling Green Cemetery Bradford [2013] John Walford Ch. (Bradford)

A faculty was granted for exhumation of a body from one part of a cemetery, where it had been interred contrary to the wishes of the deceased's wife, and reinterment near other family graves in the same cemetery. The Chancellor found that there had been "an error in administration", which justified him in granting a faculty.

Re Bretforton Cemetery [2023] ECC Wor 2

Owing to a mistake by a firm of undertakers, they had failed to comply with the instructions of the petitioner that the bulk of his mother's cremated remains should be interred in the cemetery, but that a small proportion of the ashes should be retained so that they could be symbolically scattered in accordance with the deceased's expressed wishes. The family discovered shortly after the funeral that the whole of the cremated remains had been interred. The Chancellor decided that the circumstances of the petition fitted within the legal exceptions to the doctrine of permanence and accordingly granted a faculty to allow the cremated remains to be exhumed, a portion of the ashes to be taken for scattering, and the remainder of the ashes to be reinterred in the grave plot.

Re Bromsgrove Cemetery [2013] Robert Fookes Dep. Ch. (Worcester)

The petitioner wished to have her mother's cremated remains exhumed from Bromsgrove Cemetery and scattered elsewhere with the cremated remains of the petitioner's father. The petition was unopposed, but the petitioner requested a hearing. Since the interment of the petitioner's mother's ashes, her father had always regretted acting in haste upon his wife's death and had wished that his and his wife's ashes could have been scattered together, especially as his wife had not wished to be buried in consecrated ground, neither having religious beliefs. The Chancellor granted a faculty. The petitioner's father had made a mistake as to wishes of his wife with respect to her burial. The Chancellor was satisfied that no precedent would be set by his decision. In fact a previous judgment on the same basis had already been made in respect of the same cemetery.

Re Bromsgrove Old Cemetery [2010] Charles Mynors Ch. (Worcester)

The petitioner wished to have her husband's ashes exhumed from the cemetery, to enable them to be scattered. The petitioner had been experiencing guilt that she had had her husband's ashes interred, when he had expressed a wish to have his ashes scattered. The Chancellor found that this fact, and the fact that the petitioner had not been informed by the burial authority that the interment was to be in consecrated ground (which would result in difficulties if an application were to be made subsequently for exhumation), together constituted circumstances sufficient to justify the grant of a faculty.

Re Brookwood Cemetery [2023] ECC Gui 2

Since 2017, human remains had been removed from the burial ground of St. James' Gardens, Euston, to allow for construction of part of the HS2 terminus station. The remains had been reinterred in Brookwood Cemetery, Woking, Surrey. It was now proposed that a substantial memorial, with associated landscaping, should be constructed next to the interments at Brookwood Cemetery, in memory of all those whose human remains had been moved there from St. James' Gardens, Euston. The Chancellor was satisfied that the design of the memorial, the landscaping and the proposed inscriptions were all appropriate and he granted a faculty.

Re Brookwood Cemetery [2023] ECC Gui 4

The petitioner's father had died young in a car accident in 1967, when the family lived in Surrey. His ashes were interred in Brookwood Cemetery, near where the family lived. The Petitioner's mother moved to Australia two years after her husband's death, leaving her three children in England. The children now lived in London, Andover and Australia. It was the wish of the petitioner and her two siblings that their father's ashes be exhumed and reinterred in the churchyard of St. Mary Conistone in North Yorkshire, where a number of family members were buried, though there was no family plot. Following the guiding principles in Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] 4 All ER 482, the Deputy Chancellor could find no exceptional circumstances to justify exhumation after such a long period of time.