The first petitioner and the deceased had lived together for 40 years before her death in 2009; they had three daughters and a son. Following the deceased's cremation her ashes were interred in the grave of her mother at St George, Woolhope. In July 2018 the petitioner petitioned for a faculty for the exhumation of the ashes for reburial in a plot that he had acquired for his own remains at Ledbury Cemetery. However, unbeknown to two of his daughters, from whom he was estranged, the petitioner had retained some of the deceased's ashes. They were buried in the plot in Ledbury in March 2019. In October 2019, having discovered the deception, the two daughters cross-petitioned for the exhumation of their mother's ashes from Ledbury to be re-interred at St George's. In July 2020, having been refused permission to withdraw it, the petitioner amended his petition, thereby abandoning the attempt at exhumation from St George's but seeking to retain the status quo with ashes buried respectively at St George's and Ledbury.

Applying the principles in Re Christ Church, Alsager [1999] Fam 142 and in Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299, the court held that the status quo should be preserved, on the basis that burial in consecrated ground was final and permanent. Both sets of parties believed that they had been seeking to carry out the wishes of the deceased; while unusual, the circumstances did not constitute an exception sufficient to justify exhumation. Although the petitioner had succeeded in his amended petition, that success did not reflect the original petition and the whole situation might have been avoided had he been honest with his daughters throughout. Accordingly, each party was ordered to bear their own costs. [Catherine Shelley]