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Alphabetical Index of all judgments on this web site as at 1 October 2022

Index by Dioceses of 2022 judgments on this web site as at 1 October 2022

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.

Re Burnley Cemetery [2021] ECC Bla 2

The petitioner wished to exhume the cremated remains of her husband (who had died in 2015) from Burnley Cemetery, with a view to reinterring them in a family grave, which the family was in the process of purchasing at a cemetery in Morecombe, and which the petitioner intended to be her own final resting place. The petitioner's family lived at Morecombe. The Chancellor determined that the petitioner had not established special circumstances to justify the grant of a faculty for exhumation: " ... the time spent, and the inconvenience and difficulties experienced, in travelling from Morecambe to Burnley, even at the age of 82, do not amount to special circumstances such as to justify the exhumation."

Re Burnley Cemetery [2023] ECC Bla 4

The husband and wife petitioners' son had taken his own life at the age of 23 in 2007. The petitioners had wished at the time to have their son's body buried in the churchyard of Haggart Baptist Church, where several relatives of the husband were buried. At the time they were advised that there was no family grave in which their son could be buried, so the petitioners' arranged burial in Burnley Cemetery. As they got older, the petitioners purchased a new triple-depth plot at Haggart as a family grave and hoped that their son's remains could be moved there and that they could be buried there with him in due time. The Chancellor determined that there were sufficient exceptional circumstances to justify exhumation and reinterment. Amongst other reasons, there was a family grave which had been purchased at the Baptist church, and the petitioners had been unaware at the time of their son's burial that he had been buried in a consecrated part of the cemetery and the implications of that.

Re Burwash Weald St. Philip [2013] Mark Hill Ch. (Chichester)

The Chancellor granted a faculty granted for replacement of a oil-fired boiler with gas boilers, notwithstanding that a parishioner had concern that the proposals would cause unnecessary damage to the building.

Re Caister Parish Cemetery [2016] ECC Nor 3

The Caister Joint Burial Committee proposed to remove and relocate all memorials from an old section of the parish cemetery, to allow for an ordered reuse of that area for further burials. There were objections from two relatives of persons buried in the 1890s. The Chancellor determined that the petitioners’ need to clear an area for reuse must outweigh the wishes of the objectors, but directed that the two memorials concerned should be carefully relocated to the boundary of the cemetery.