The petitioners were two widows whose husbands' cremated remains had been interred close against the boundary fence of the churchyard for over a decade. Following the transfer of responsibility for maintenance to the local authority the churchyard had become very overgrown in that area. This made it difficult and possibly dangerous for the petitioners, who were in their eighties, to get to the graves to tend them. The petitioners sought to exhume their husbands' remains and re-inter them six feet away in a more accessible part of the area for cremated remains.

Distinguishing the case of Re St Bartholomew, Horley (2010) 12 Ecc LJ 405, the chancellor held that the fact that the remains were to be moved over such a short distance did not assist in establishing a special reason for exhumation, given that Christian theology requires the entrusting of the deceased's soul into God's care and that mortal remains should rest undisturbed. The poor state of cemetery maintenance was also not a sufficient reason on which to found an exception to the permanence of Christian burial, following Re Southern Cemetery (2013) 15 Ecc LJ 123. A faculty was refused but the chancellor suggested that instead the memorial plaques could be placed in the alternative location without exhumation of the remains. [Catherine Shelley]