Exhumations

The Chancellor granted a faculty for exhumation, finding that there were sufficient special circumstances to justify him doing so. The undertakers had failed to ensure that the grave digger had dug the grave sufficiently deep. In consequence of this failure, the coffin had become exposed to the surface at one end, where the ground had sunk. Additionally, the ground anchors supporting the headstone had pierced the top corner of the coffin and the coffin lid was broken or had rotted since burial. The Chancellor directed that the cost of the exhumation, including the faculty fees, should rest with the undertakers.

The petitioner wished to have the remains of her late father-in-law temporarily exhumed for DNA analysis. She claimed that in 2018 her husband had been wrongly convicted of two rapes in 1983 and 1988. The petitioner's sister-in-law did not believe that her brother had committed the offences of which he had been convicted, but that her father might well have been the perpetrator. The Chancellor considered that the petitioner had made out a case for the temporary disinterment of the remains and sampling of bone fragments for DNA analysis, to establish whether there was a possibility of a miscarriage of justice. He accordingly granted a faculty.

The petitioners wished to have their father's ashes (interred in 2004) exhumed and reinterred in the grave of their mother, whose body was buried in 2015. Considering the guidelines in Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002], the Chancellor determined to grant a faculty on the basis that (a) the reinterment would be into a family grave and would free up a cremation plot

The petitioner sought exhumation of the cremated remains of her late husband, which had been interred in Ansley churchyard in 2015, and reinterment in Hartshill Cemetery, citing dissatisfaction with the upkeep of the churchyard and difficulty of access to the grave. Following the principles laid down in Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299, a decision of the Court of Arches, that burial of human remains in consecrated ground should normally be regarded as permanent and that exhumation should only be allowed in exceptional circumstances, the Chancellor determined that there were no exceptional circumstances in this petition to justify the grant of a faculty.

The petitioner wished to exhume the cremated remains of her parents and re-inter them elsewhere in the same churchyard. The remains of both parents had been interred in a double casket in 2020. Unfortunately, due to an error in record keeping, the casket was interred in an unmarked plot containing the remains of another person. The mistake came to light when the petitioner subsequently applied for permission for a memorial stone. In view of the fact that an administrative error had been made, the Chancellor was satisfied that this was an exceptional circumstance which should override the presumption of permanence of burial and he therefore granted a faculty.

The Chancellor refused to grant a faculty to authorise the temporary removal from the vault beneath the Sheldon Chapel of a skull, possibly that of William Shakespeare, to enable the carrying out of a detailed archaeological investigation to include laser scanning, radio carbon dating, and an anthropological assessment. The Chancellor found no scholarly or other evidence to support the story that the skull was that of William Shakespeare.

The petitioner wished to have the cremated remains of her father, who died in 2000, exhumed from Orford churchyard and reinterred? in the grave of her mother, whose ashes had been interred in Warrington Cemetery about 18 months before the death of the petitioner's father. The petitioner's mother had been a Roman Catholic and her father had been an Anglican. The petitioner claimed that, at the time of her father's death, the family mistakenly thought he had to be buried in an Anglican grave. She also stated that the family now wished to have the couple united in a family grave. The Chancellor decided that there were no exceptional circumstances to justify the grant of a faculty: the issue as to where the petitioner's father could be buried could have been decided shortly after his death; a long period had elapsed since the interment; and there was no support for the exhumation from the parish.

The petitioner wished to exhume the cremated remains of her father and reinter them in the grave of her mother in the same churchyard. The Chancellor decided that neither a desire to have both parents' remains together, nor the state of the location where the father's remains were interred, were enough to amount to special circumstances to justify the grant of a faculty for exhumation. Nor was there any element of mistake as to the places of interment. He therefore refused to grant a faculty.

This is an anonymised judgment. In 2014, Baby A was buried in the grave of his paternal grandfather in the churchyard of St. Margaret Ormesby. His parents, his mother B and father C, had subsequently separated after a difficult relationship. Medical evidence was produced to explain that B, when visiting the grave, had been suffering psychological harm and distress including nightmares and flashbacks to extremely distressing incidents. Another reason for the application, made jointly by B and C, was that C’s mother had recently died, and C and his brother wished to bury their mother’s remains in the grave containing the remains of their father and Baby A. B wished A’s remains to be cremated or alternatively reburied in the churchyard of St. Michael Ormesby. The Chancellor granted a faculty, but subject to reburial in the churchyard of St. Michael Ormesby.

The petitioner's father was a Latvian. After release from a German prisoner of war camp, he had not been allowed to return to Latvia (then occupied by Russia), and so he had settled in England. He died in 1995 and his cremated remains were interred in the Lower Stratton Cemetery (owned by the Parish Council) next to St. Margaret's Church. The petitioner's mother died in 2022, and part of her cremated remains had been buried in the same plot as her husband's. The petitioner wished to exhume the ashes of her father, so that part of his ashes could be interred with the retained portion of her mother's ashes in Latvia. The Chancellor refused to grant a faculty: there was no evidence of the father's desire to have his remains interred in Latvia, or any evidence that he wished his remains to be buried with his wife's remains; there was no discussion at the time of his funeral about the possibility of moving his remains in the future; no enquiries had been made about the possibility of exhumation in the 27 years since he had died; there was no intention to create a family grave, but two separate graves; and no effort had been made to identify graves in Latvia.