The petitioner was the nephew of the deceased. He sought her exhumation from the grave of his father, the deceased's brother, where she had been buried without the knowledge or consent of that part of the family. Although the deceased had expressed a wish to be buried in Cubley, she had no right of burial there. The associate priest and churchwardens were not prepared to agree to a new grave in a churchyard with limited space; the decision to bury her in the grave of her brother effectively created a family grave. The petitioner sought exhumation on the basis that the relevant part of the family had not been consulted and that they had an exclusive family right to burial in the grave, which they understood to be a single grave. Although exhumation was requested, no alternative proposals were made for re-burial.

The Parochial Church Council (PCC) opposed exhumation on the basis of the principle of the permanence of Christian burial. Applying re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299, the court held that there was no sufficiently exceptional reason to justify exhumation and the displacement of the presumption of permanence. It also observed that, in the absence of a reservation by faculty, there was no property right in a grave. The PCC had an interest in safeguarding the churchyard for those with a right of burial and might be assumed to know the needs and circumstances of their parish, such as the rate of death and the number of spaces remaining.

With respect to the need to consult all members of the family, the court distinguished re St Mary's Polstead [2017] ECC SEI 2: in this case, there was no known family dispute. To expect church officials to make enquiries of all relatives of whom they had no knowledge was an unreasonable burden. The decision as to the location of the burial had been properly made by the self-supporting minister and churchwardens in the absence of the incumbent. The faculty was refused. [Catherine Shelley]