Body in a village near Banbury will be exhumed after it was buried in the wrong grave

A south Warwickshire parish council has been ordered by a judge to pay the price of a blunder which resulted in a body being buried in a grave that had already been earmarked for someone else.

Rare consent has been granted by a judge of the Church of England’s Consistory Court for exhumation of the body buried in Gaydon Parish Cemetery in July last year.

Normally the court refuses consent for exhumation on the basis of the church philosophy that a last resting place should be just that unless there has been a mistake or there are exceptional circumstances.

In this case, however, Glyn Ross Samuel, deputy chancellor of the Diocese of Coventry, ruled that there had definitely been a mistake. And as well as granting consent for exhumation and ordering his re-burial in another part of the cemetery, he also ordered that Gaydon Parish Council must foot the bill for its mistake.

The body is that of man who died on July 12 last year (the family have asked for his name to be withheld). The judge said he was mistakenly buried in a plot which had been reserved in 2016 by another family, so their mother and father could be next to each other.

The application for exhumation and re-burial to put matters right was made to the court on behalf of the parish council by its chairman John Davies after the mistake was discovered.

Judge Samuel said the family been told what had happened and had agreed to matters being put right by exhumation and re-burial.

He said: “There has been a wholly regrettable failure by those charged with administering the Gaydon Parish Cemetery leading to this almost inevitable application, supported quite generously by the family.”

Explaining the normal church philosophy against exhumation the judge quoted a signpost case in 2002.

In that case he said it was held that: “The permanent burial of the physical body/the burial of cremated remains should be seen as a symbol of our entrusting the person to God for resurrection. We are commending the person to God, saying farewell to them (for their “journey”), entrusting them in peace for their ultimate destination, with us, the heavenly Jerusalem.

“This commending, entrusting, resting in peace does not sit easily with “portable remains”, which suggests the opposite: reclaiming, possession, and restlessness; a holding on to the 'symbol' of a human life rather than a giving back to God’”

However, the judge continued: “I am quite satisfied that this is a situation where the presumption of the permanence of the burial may be displaced by the circumstances of what has occurred.

“There has been a ‘mistake’ in that the interment of the body was within a grave space that should not have been used. I am also grateful to see that the mistake was noticed quite promptly and those representing the Gaydon Parish Council have acted promptly and appropriately to address the error.”

He added: “I am concerned to understand how this error occurred as no formal evidence of how the mistake arose has been presented.

“However, from the information I have received it appears that the mistake was made by those administering the cemetery on behalf of the Gaydon Parish Council. I therefore direct that Gaydon Parish Council bear the costs for this faculty (petition to the court) and for the exhumation and re-interment.”