The mother of a deceased baby sought a faculty for exhumation and re-interment of her child’s remains. The baby had died at or shortly after birth in summer 2022, following a pregnancy marked by domestic violence that caused premature birth at 23 weeks. The child was initially buried in the father’s home village, but the mother subsequently escaped the abusive relationship and moved to live near her own family in a distant location.
The father was prosecuted and pleaded guilty to intentional suffocation and controlling and coercive behaviour, receiving a substantial prison sentence. The court noted that few cases of coercive control reach criminal prosecution, and fewer still result in lengthy sentences, indicating the abuse was ‘at the serious and sustained end of the spectrum’. The mother suffered post-traumatic stress symptoms and had a restraining order protecting her from the father, who was also prohibited from contact with the surviving twin daughter.
The father had controlled the funeral arrangements and insisted on burial in his home village. The mother, then under his coercive influence, lacked the autonomy to express contrary wishes. She now sought re-interment in her current area, being unable to visit the existing grave due to its location in the father’s isolated village and her ongoing fear of him and his family. The father objected, asserting that his daughter should remain undisturbed and expressing concern that relocation would prevent his future visits.
Applying Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299, the court recognised the general presumption against exhumation but found exceptional circumstances. While no genuine ‘mistake’ occurred in the burial location choice, the mother’s decision-making was entirely suborned by coercive and controlling influence, to the extent that she lacked sufficient freedom or autonomy. This was supported by evidence from family and domestic abuse professionals, and crucially by the father’s guilty plea to coercive control.
The court found a pressing pastoral need for the mother and the surviving twin to visit the grave regularly in safety. The court afforded limited weight to the father’s objections given his established abusive conduct, criminal conviction, and the continuing protection needed by mother and child. The court granted a faculty, finding that a burial site choice dictated by an abuser in a violent, coercive relationship must be capable of being regarded as exceptional circumstances. The judgment was anonymised to protect the parties’ privacy, with the papers kept confidential.
