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Ecclesiastical Case Reports
Re Miresse deceased; Re Lambeth Cemetery
(Southwark Consistory Court, George Ch, July 2003)
Exhumation
The petitioner’s daughter had died unexpectedly at the age of 16 in 1985. She was buried in the consecrated part of Lambeth Cemetery. As Italian Roman Catholics the family had originally intended to return to Italy and take the daughter’s remains with them for reburial in an aboveground mausoleum in South Italy (that style of burial being very common practice in Italy). In 1998 however a new mausoleum was opened at Streatham Park Cemetery and at great expense a right of burial was secured. The petitioners applied for a faculty to exhume and re-bury their daughter. The chancellor was assured that this reburial was final. The petitioners argued that a mistake had been made with the original burial there having been no intention that the burial should be permanent. The chancellor reviewed the five respects in which the principles set out in In re Blagdon Cemetery [2002] 3 WLR 603 were relevant. He decided that this was a case where a mistake had occurred due to a lack of knowledge at the time of the burial that it was taking place in consecrated ground with its associated significance as a Christian place of burial. The petition was granted.
[JG]
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