The deceased's widow petitioned for a faculty for the exhumation of the deceased's cremated remains from the consecrated area of the local municipal cemetery in order that she could scatter them in accordance with his dying wishes. During the last 15 years of his life the deceased had been confined to a wheelchair and had expressed a desire for his remains to be scattered in order that he ‘at last could be free’. The widow acknowledged that she had ‘selfishly’ decided to inter the deceased's remains in order that she would ‘have somewhere to visit him and feel close to him’. She was not made aware that the land in question was consecrated. The chancellor distinguished this case from that of a simple ‘change of mind’, stating that the widow's change of mind arose not from a passing fancy but rather from a serious wish to rectify what she realised to have been an error on her part. He found that special circumstances existed and issued a faculty accordingly. [RA]
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