01 April 2023 , 21:57
1046
0
A woman in Greater Manchester has been unsuccessful in her bid to have her brother's ashes exhumed from their parents' grave.
Susan Bennett asked a judge for permission for her brother's ashes to be removed from a plot at St George's Church, Unsworth, Bury because she felt his remains being placed there "violated" her parents' grave.
Mrs Bennett said her brother Brian Yates was an excessive drinker who had been violent towards his mother and aunt.
She claimed other members of the family were unwilling to visit the grave because of the ashes now placed in it, Manchester Evening News reported.
Mrs Bennett says her brother's ashes stops people visiting (Getty Images/Johner RF)Only two people attended the May 2020 burial, including another of Mr Yates' sisters, Jacqueline Haslam, and his daughter Bethany Maher.
Kamala Harris and George Floyd's brother among hundreds at Tyre Nichols funeral
Ms Haslam indicated she did not like the proposal to exhume the remains and Ms Maher formerly objected to it.
Gregory Jones KC, Chancellor of the Diocese of Manchester rejected the request to have the ashes removed.
Mr Jones said to the proposal in his role as a judge of the Church of England’s Consistory Court. He said it was an "unfortunate case" that came from a "deeply fractured" family, but the remains could not be removed because it would be against Church of England Philosophy.
Church of England Philosophy dictates a final resting place should remain so unless there has been a mistake or there are exceptional circumstances.
Mr Jones said that despite the allegations against Mr Yates, there was evidence that he "had some loving feeling for his mother (who suffered from dementia) and that these feelings were reciprocated."
He added that there was an 'absence of any concrete evidence pointing to Mr Yates' estrangement from his parents'.
Reports indicated Mrs Bennett plans to appeal the decision.
Earlier this year, the buried ashes of a husband and wife were cleared for relocation after a judge was informed their headstone was covered in bird poo.
Frederick and Ellen Couley's remains in Heaton Cemetery, Newcastle were below a tree used as a roost for birds.
Their son, Terry Couley, told the Church of England’s Consistory Court that the grave was a health hazard.
'My partner wants to go to a funeral I was excluded from - I'm devastated'
Judge and Chancellor of the Diocese of Newcastle Simon Wood approved the request for relocation, saying the headstone had become "that it had become unsightly and unhygienic."
More exceptional circumstances were seen in Lanarkshire, Scotland, last year when a horrified family found their loved one was buried next to child killer Sam Glass.
Glass molested and killed a five-year-old girl in the 1960s and he passed away in a secure institution in 2018.
It took the family three years and thousands in cash to have their loved ones' remains exhumed and moved.