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Re St Mary's Churchyard, Goring-by-Sea

Chichester Consistory Court: Hill Ch, April 2009 Exhumation – mistake – family grave

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 August 2009

Ruth Arlow
Affiliation:
Barrister, Deputy Chancellor of the Dioceses of Chichester and Norwich
Will Adam
Affiliation:
Rector of Girton, Ely Diocesan Ecumenical Officer
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Abstract

Type
Case Notes
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical Law Society 2009

The chancellor granted a faculty for the exhumation of the cremated remains of the petitioner's father and their re-interment in a ‘family grave’. The remains had originally been buried elsewhere in the churchyard, after the petitioner had been told by the funeral directors that the family grave was full. However the remains of the petitioner's uncle had subsequently been interred in it. The combined effect of innocent mistake and the undoubted desire for family members to be buried in the same grave brought this case within the exceptional class, in accordance with the principles of Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299, Ct of Arches. [RA]