The petitioner sought a faculty for his father's cremated remains to be exhumed and re-interred next to the remains of his mother in a parish in another diocese where the petitioner now lived. The chancellor had previously given a judgment on the same facts ([2018] ECC Cov 7), but this was set aside when it became apparent that there had been some confusion over the provision of further representations in accordance with directions that had been made.

The deputy chancellor thus considered the matter afresh, noting that, in Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299, the Court of Arches had held that there had to be some exceptional circumstance before the norm of permanent burial was set aside. In Re Christ Church, Alsager [1999] Fam 142, the court had held that it would not normally be sufficient to show a change of mind on the part of relatives of the deceased. The deputy chancellor therefore noted the difficulty for relatives to justify a request for translocation of buried remains when the principal reason put forward was that the family now resided in a different part of the country. Although the deputy chancellor found the petitioner's contentions to be sincere, the present case was nevertheless essentially one in which there had been a change of mind based on a change in family circumstances. Those changes did not amount to the exceptional circumstances that would be required to justify exhumation. He refused to grant a faculty. [Jonathan Storey]