The petitioner sought a faculty reserving a grave space for her burial in a double-depth grave where her deceased cohabitant of 25 years had been buried 28 years earlier. Although she regarded herself as the deceased's wife, the petitioner was not married to him and was therefore not his next of kin. His next of kin, the deceased's daughter by his first partner, opposed the petition and was supported by other family members. There was animosity between the parties which arose from the deceased's relationship with the petitioner, following his first partner's death at the age of 32. It was not in dispute that the deceased had at one time wished to be buried with his first partner, nor that it was the petitioner who had cared for the deceased in his last years and had paid for the burial and gravestone. The party opponent and her family gave evidence that they would struggle to visit their father's grave if the petitioner were also buried there; it would feel a betrayal of their mother who was buried elsewhere within the churchyard.

In 2013 the incumbent had made an entry on the burial record that there should be no further burials in the deceased's grave. The petitioner sought to overturn that decision and be buried with the deceased. The chancellor refused the faculty on the basis that, although he recognised this would cause significant pain to the petitioner, where there was such animosity it would be better not to exercise his discretion in a way that would intervene in their argument. He noted that the discretion as to burial in a churchyard remains with the incumbent and that there was no reason why the petitioner should not be buried in the same churchyard. [Catherine Shelley]