The petitioner sought a faculty permitting the exhumation of the remains of her father for their cremation and burial with the cremated remains of her mother in Scotland alongside other family graves. The father's remains had been buried 40 years previously, at a time when financial need had required the family to live in England, but both parents were Scottish and had expressed a desire to return to Scotland in life and in death. The father's death had been sudden and unexpected and the mother, who had been left a young widow with dependent children, had struggled to cope financially and with other practical matters. She had been unable to arrange a burial in Scotland. The petitioner argued that the burial had taken place in the Anglican consecrated part of the town cemetery by mistake, as the father had been a Baptist and the family worshipped at a Methodist church at the time of his death.

The chancellor referred to the decision of Re St Chad, Bensham [2016] ECC Dur 2. She exercised her discretion in the case by applying the test in the Chancery Court decision of Re Christ Church, Alsager [1999] Fam 142: ‘Is there a good and proper reason which would be likely to be regarded as acceptable by right thinking members of the Church at large?’ The chancellor was also guided by the exceptionality test in the Court of Arches decision of Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299. She granted the faculty, observing that the father's wishes were reflective of his culture and nationality and had only been thwarted by impecuniosity and the inexperience and inability of his widow at the time of his early death. The remains would be placed in a family grave. [RA]