A FACULTY for exhumation and reburial in a unique plot in the identical churchyard has been granted within the diocese of Canterbury. The Commissary Court ruled that the emotional distress caused to David John Woods’s family by his being interred in a plot alongside a person who, they allege, had financially abused and exploited them justified a departure from the presumption of the permanence of Christian burial.
Mr Woods was buried in February 2024 within the churchyard of St Nicholas’s, Ash, where his widow had bought a double plot, in order that she may very well be buried there alongside him in the end.
She subsequently found that the burial place was immediately alongside one other individual, identified only as X, who died around the identical time as her husband.
Mrs Woods made the petition for exhumation and reburial, alleging that X had financially abused and exploited their daughter a few years ago, causing distress to their family, and that Mr Woods had spent a few years paying off the debts incurred because of this of X’s conduct.
She said that X’s conduct “nearly broke” her husband, and that he would have been seriously upset had he known that he would come to be buried alongside X. She said that she found the proximity abhorrent and will not accept that she, too, would come to rest there. This was a matter of great distress to her and was impeding the family’s grieving and healing. They mostly visited the grave after dark, she said, because, in daylight, the presence of X’s grave was more noticeable and distressing.
The incumbent, the Revd Caroline Turvey, was not supportive of the petition. She said that, had the clergy known in regards to the Woods family’s feeling towards X on the time of Mr Woods’s burial, X wouldn’t have been interred beside him. She also identified that only a small proportion of the churchyard was available for burial. Therefore, even when Mr Woods were to be exhumed and reinterred in the identical churchyard, he would still be buried near to, though not immediately alongside, X. She said that the presumption of the permanence of Christian burial shouldn’t be displaced on this case.
The Woods family acknowledged the presumption of the permanence of Christian burial, but emphasised the importance of having the ability to rest in peace. They felt strongly that the plots’ being immediately adjoining to one another was pivotal, and that any greater distance between the 2 would suffice to resolve their concerns.
The Commissary General, Robin Hopkins, said that the law was clear that Christian burial was to be treated as final, in order that exhumation can be permitted only in exceptional cases. The issue was whether the exceptionality threshold was met. The Woods family’s “grieving and their ability to be at peace . . . [were] impeded by the establishment”, he said. While this won’t “amount to a serious psychiatric or psychological problem within the medical sense”, weight was given to the “impact of the establishment” on the family’s well-being.
Mr Woods would have been very upset had he had foreseen what would occur and “wouldn’t have approached his death with a way of peace”, the Commissary General said. Another crucial factor was Mrs Woods’s intention of being in the identical plot. The establishment left her within the exceptionally difficult position of “either being buried next to X or being buried individually from her husband”.
The judge emphasised that what had happened was “not the fault of the clergy or anyone else involved — it [was] an unlucky accident of circumstance”.
The court was satisfied — “albeit by a comparatively narrow margin” — that the exceptionality threshold was met on this case, although the choice was “highly fact-specific and shouldn’t be interpreted as setting a precedent”.
