A Detective Inspector petitioned to exhume the remains of the deceased for a forensic post-mortem examination to investigate the true cause of death. The police requested that the exhumation should be completed without the prior knowledge of the deceased's family as the deceased's next of kin had been identified as suspects. The remains would be decently retained for as long as any criminal proceedings required, before being returned to the same grave.
Pursuant to rule 6.6(3) of the Faculty Jurisdiction Rules 2015, the court may dispense with giving public notice of a petition for exhumation if any near relative of the deceased still living, and any other person who the chancellor considers it is reasonable to regard as being concerned with the matter, are either (a) petitioners or (b) consent to the proposed faculty being granted. Neither exception applied.
Pursuant to rule 6.6(4), the court may dispense with the giving of public notice and may direct that any of the persons referred to are given special notice. The court considered that this allowed the court to dispense with both the giving of public notice and direct that no-one referred to in paragraph (3) was to be given special notice. Accordingly, the court dispensed with public notice and directed no special notices.
In respect to the petition, the court had regard to analogous cases in which orders were granted for exhumation in aid of DNA analysis. It was held the situations envisaged in Re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] Fam 299 were entirely different and therefore of limited assistance. It was held, granting a faculty, that the need to establish, if possible, the true cause of the deceased's death constituted special circumstances which constituted good and proper reason for making an exception to finality of Christian burial. [Naomi Gyane]
