Re Hagley Municipal Cemetery

The deceased and his widow were both Roman Catholics. The widow petitioned for the exhumation of the deceased's remains from the consecrated area of the local municipal cemetery for their re-interment in the local Roman Catholic cemetery. She argued that exceptional circumstances existed on the basis of mistake in that she had not previously known that a Roman Catholic cemetery existed in the area, that the plot in which her husband was buried was unsafe and vulnerable to a landslip and that the direction in which her husband had been buried was incorrect. The evidence did not support these arguments and the chancellor rejected them accordingly. Nevertheless, the chancellor considered the decision in Re Putney Vale Cemetery ⁴ and held that a mistake had been made sufficient to amount to exceptional circumstances in that the widow had no understanding of the nature and significance of consecration and therefore did not fully appreciate the permanence of burial in consecrated ground. A faculty was granted. [RA]