The petitioner sought a confirmatory faculty for the retention of a memorial introduced into the churchyard without permission. It had not been created or installed by an established monumental mason and it was outside the Churchyard Regulations in material, design and content. In particular, on the back there was a critical verse by the deceased about the chemotherapy drug with which he had been treated, and a verse from The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

To introduce a memorial without permission was a trespass, even though its removal must be authorised by faculty. While context and proportionality were important, toleration of such trespasses was unfair on others who had accepted the rules and acted lawfully. Those who complied with the law justifiably felt aggrieved when others who did not comply were rewarded by church authorities’ turning a blind eye.

As to the permissibility of the memorial itself, the court considered the approach to take when considering whether to grant a faculty for a memorial which fell outside the Churchyard Regulations. Some consistory courts took the view that, because the Regulations were nothing more than an act of delegation, no burden was imposed on a petitioner save that of demonstrating that on the particular facts a faculty should be granted (for example, Re St John the Baptist, Adel [2016] ECC Lee 8). However, the court agreed with the analysis and conclusion in Re St Saviour, Ringley Stoneclough [2018] ECC Man 3, that the appropriate test was ‘whether the Petitioners have shown a good and substantial reason why [the court] should approve this proposed memorial which constitutes a departure from the stance adopted in the Regulations’. This was, in particular, a matter of justice and fairness to others who had put aside their personal preferences in complying with the Regulations.

The court noted that memorial inscriptions must be simple, reverent and appropriate; the purpose of the epitaph was to honour the dead, comfort the living and inform posterity. Individuality and diversity were to be encouraged, but anything which could be seen as inconsistent with the Church's message could not be permitted. In this case, the words of the poem conveyed a tone of criticism, disappointment and despair, which was wholly inconsistent with the Church's message of hope and faith, and fundamentally at odds with what was acceptable in a churchyard.

The court accordingly refused a confirmatory faculty and granted a faculty for the removal of the stone. [DW]