WHEN the gravedigger had been given incorrect information about the depth of the grave, and the burial had then taken place, there was an exceptional reason for granting a faculty to permit exhumation and reinterment at the correct depth in the same plot.
The Consistory Court of Lincoln therefore granted the faculty, but asked the parish council for an assurance that there would be a review of the means by which gravediggers were given instructions, so that such a serious mistake would not occur again.
The petitioners for the faculty were the clerk to the parish council, Julie Moss, and Melissa Shennan, the widow of the deceased, Christopher Giles Shennan, who died on 13 August 2024. His remains were interred in a consecrated plot at Barrowby burial ground on 13 September.
The gravedigger had been given incorrect information to dig a single-depth grave when it should have been a double-depth grave. The faculty was sought to permit the digging of a double-depth grave at the same plot. That required a trench to be dug so that the coffin could be moved to one side in order to enable the lower depth to be dug, and then for the coffin to be interred at the correct level. The parish council will be responsible for all additional costs incurred.
The Chancellor, the Worshipful Judge Mark Bishop, said that the principle of the permanence of Christian burial could be departed from only if there were special circumstances that justified an exception to the principle that the deceased was laid to rest in September this year, and his remains should not now be disturbed.
In the Blagdon Cemetery case, the Court of Arches identified various factors that might support a submission that special circumstances had arisen that permitted the remains to be exhumed. Those factors included where there had been a mistake made about the burial.
Where there had been a simple error in administration, such as burial in the wrong grave, or at the wrong depth, the Court of Arches held that faculties for exhumation could readily be granted. Of more difficulty, the Chancellor said, was where there was a failure to understand or appreciate the significance of burial in consecrated ground in a municipal cemetery.
The Chancellor was satisfied, however, that exceptional reasons did exist in this case for an exhumation to be permitted. There had plainly been a mistake in the depth of the grave being dug, and that could now be remedied by a faculty.
The Chancellor said that, while it was recognised that errors could occur, “an error that requires a faculty to exhume and reinter so soon after a funeral is a serious mistake which will . . . have been extremely distressing” for the widow and family of the deceased. The Chancellor asked for Ms Moss’s “assurance that the means by which gravediggers are given such important information before they dig has been reviewed, and that such a serious mistake will not occur again”.
