THE Consistory Court of the diocese of Oxford has refused a faculty to permit the burial of the remains of a man in the grave of his late wife, because of objections by family members who alleged that he had subjected his wife to domestic abuse.
To protect the right to respect for the private and family life of those who might be affected by the judgment, it was handed down in anonymised form, so that the names of those who featured in it, the location of the parish, and any details that might lead to their identification were omitted.
The Chancellor, the Worshipful David Hodge KC, recognised the importance of open justice, but said that anonymisation was appropriate in the circumstances of the present case, because of the nature of the matters relating to persons both alive and dead which the court had to address.
The recently deceased husband was identified only as AB, and his late wife as CD. They had both been active members of a parish where AB had been churchwarden. CD died in 2001. Over the next decade, AB retrained to be a counsellor, giving support through a charitable organisation to those with substance misuse. AB, who had been in the army, spent the last years of his life as a Chelsea Pensioner in the Royal Hospital, Chelsea, and continued to help his fellow pensioners until his health failed.
In April this year, AB’s sister and sole executrix of his will petitioned for the interment of his cremated remains with those of his wife. AB’s sister said she wanted to carry out his dearest wish that his remains should be interred with those of CD.
The minister and churchwarden concerned certified that that would not interfere with the rights of parishioners to be buried in the churchyard. The petition was also supported by the PCC. It had been AB who had bought the existing memorial to CD. It was decided that giving the consistory court the task with the difficult pastoral situation that arose was preferable to leaving it to the minister to take a view.
Objections to the petition were received in response to special notices that were served on family members. CD’s family, two of AB’s sisters, and the adult son and only child of AB and CD objected to the petition because of the domestic abuse to which, they alleged, AB had subjected CD and their son.
His son stated that AB “would be described in today’s language as both a psychopath and a narcissist, and his abusive behaviour to both my mother and I made both our lives a misery”. One of AB’s sisters said she had “witnessed first-hand” AB “hitting and kicking” CD.
The reservation of a grave space was entirely within the discretion of the consistory court, to be exercised with regard to the particular circumstances of the case. A faculty had been applied for so that the court rather than the incumbent could determine whether, given the objections, AB’s cremated remains should be laid to rest with the human remains of his former wife.
The Chancellor said that he was “satisfied that the fact that the presence of particular human or cremated remains in a grave would become a cause of distress or conflict, or a focus of grievance between family members and those attending to mourn at the graveside, constitutes a good and sufficient reason to refuse a faculty.”
Applying that principle, the Chancellor said he had no doubt that the faculty petition should be refused. The introduction of AB’s cremated remains into CD’s grave would cause distress or conflict or a focus of grievance between family members and those attending to mourn at CD’s grave.
The Chancellor recognised that the assertions of domestic abuse were being raised after AB’s death, and thus he was unable to defend himself. In civil cases generally, the court would always carefully scrutinise the evidence in a claim made against the estate of a deceased person, and supported only by the uncorroborated evidence of the person making the claim.
The Chancellor said, however, that he was not in a position to make any determination about what happened between AB and CD. And he did not purport to do so. But he said that “the consistory court should not accept the mere assertion of domestic abuse unless there [was] some credible evidence put forward in good faith, to support the existence of such abuse.”
The Chancellor was satisfied that, in this case, there was cogent evidence of such abuse from members of the family, and “most importantly from the only child of the marriage . . . now an adult”. The Church of England in general, and the Oxford diocese in particular, took “abuse in any form most seriously”, and the “credible evidence put forward in good faith [could] not be ignored”, the Chancellor stated. Even if AB had reflected on his faults in his final years, that could not “eradicate, or dispel the effect which they [had] created in the minds of the objectors”.
In those circumstances, it would not be just to compel the objectors to mourn for CD at a graveside containing the cremated remains of her former husband and perceived abuser, the Chancellor ruled, and the diocese could not condone such a situation, still less participate actively in bringing it about.
A faculty was therefore refused.