Wakefield Consistory Court; Collier Ch. April 1994

Where the relatives of a man who had wished to be buried with his infant son had erroneously understood that there was insufficient room in the son's grave, so that the father (who died accidentally in a fire) had to be buried in a churchyard elsewhere, the Court exercised its discretion in overriding the general principle and permitting exhumation of the son and re-burial with the father. The case was an unusual one. The family had always the intention that the son, who had died at a tragically early age, should be buried together with his mother and father. The appropriate arrangements which they had made were frustrated through no fault of theirs. They had the desire, which was part of their history and culture, and did not arise from any superstitious or false belief, to be together in death as in life. Re Atkins [1989] 1 All E.R. 14 considered.

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(1994) 3 Ecc LJ 261