THE unpleasantness of a poorly maintained churchyard that was being used by youths who gathered there to indulge in antisocial behaviour and drug abuse was not a good enough reason to depart from the presumption of the permanence of Christian burial so as to allow the exhumation of remains buried there, the Consistory Court of the diocese of Liverpool has ruled.

The Court has refused to grant a faculty permitting the exhumation of the remains of the petitioners’ son Adam, who died, aged 19, of cancer in May 2007. His body was placed in an oak coffin and interred in the churchyard of Ormskirk Parish Church, in Lancashire.

His parents now petitioned for the exhumation and reinterment of Adam’s remains in West Lancashire Cemetery, where the family could ultimately be together.

The diocesan Chancellor, the Worshipful Judge Graham Wood KC, said that, “as is commonplace these days in large towns where there are insufficient facilities for young people, the churchyard and the church grounds have become a gathering place for youths indulging in antisocial behaviour, and, perhaps more concerning, drug abuse.”

There was anecdotal evidence that needles and other drug paraphernalia had been found lying among the gravestones in the churchyard. The Chancellor said that “keeping the grounds free from such behaviour [was] not an easy task.”

Adam’s parents said that they had experienced antisocial behaviour first hand, and no longer felt safe to visit their son’s grave. His mother said that she often went there alone to “sit with Adam”, and had been accosted by “groups of youngsters” who were drinking and made her feel “intimidated and unsafe”.

Adam’s parents also said that his grave had become “quite sunken and waterlogged” and was “really upsetting to see”.

The principles that a Consistory Court must apply when considering whether to grant a petition for exhumation are set out in judgments of the Court of Arches and the Chancery Court of York respectively: Re Blagdon Cemetery and Re Christ Church, Alsager. The Consistory Court would grant a faculty for exhumation only in exceptional circumstances, and for good and proper reasons. A change of mind, or a general desire that family members be buried together, was usually insufficient, and a delay caused by the passage of time would make it less likely that exhumation would be allowed, unless there were very compelling reasons.

The “importance of the permanence of Christian burial cannot be understated”, the Chancellor said, and “the peaceful rest of the departed is to be of paramount importance.” Nor, he said, should the court be “swayed” by its undoubted sympathy for the family, and “the additional grief which might be caused by the refusal of an application for exhumation”.

The overarching principle was that there must be identified a good and proper reason for the reinterment. The justification in the present case was the distress caused by the unpleasant environment of an allegedly poorly maintained churchyard, and antisocial behaviour often present when the petitioners visited the grave.

The Chancellor said that, although he had enormous sympathy for Adam’s family, who would derive great comfort from visiting his grave “in a peaceful and reflective manner without disturbance”, there were many others who had also buried family members in recent years in the same churchyard, and who regularly visited graves to pay their respects, pray, and reflect. They would undoubtedly be having similar experiences.

If the court were to order an exhumation in one singular case, the Chancellor said, there was the potential for a precedent to be set that would make it difficult to refuse any other exhumation application made on a similar basis.

The Chancellor said that there were clear steps that could be taken by those responsible for this churchyard to ensure far greater protection for those who tended graves or arranged for burials. There was a “reasonable expectation that the churchyard will be reasonably maintained by the church, and that no graves or memorials are affected by sinking ground or the failure to remove overgrowth”. The Chancellor had no power, however, to direct the taking of such steps.