Church reject family's request to exhume ashes

A grieving daughter from Stafford is unable to fulfil her mother's dying wish after a Church of England judge refused to allow her father's cremated remains to be exhumed.

Yvonne Hinksman applied to have the ashes of her father, Selby Thacker lifted from Stafford Crematorium after the death of her mother, Marjorie Thacker in December 2013 so her parent's ashes could be scattered together.

Mr Thacker died in 1977 and after Mrs Thacker passed away, aged 88, their daughter applied to Lichfield Diocese so the couple could be reunited where they first met, on the banks of the River Tyne at Barrasford in Northumberland.

Despite Stafford Borough Council agreeing, Stephen Eyre, Chancellor of the Diocese of Lichfield and a judge of the Church's Consistory Court refused the application ruling that Mr Thacker's remains must stay in consecrated ground at the cemetery onTixall Road.

Exhumation can only be permitted in exceptional circumstances and Chancellor Eyre said :"Mrs Hinksman frankly accepts that the interment of Mr Thacker's remains was neither an error nor a mistake."

Chancellor Eyre said it was difficult to envisage circumstances in which it would be appropriate to allow remains to be exhumed for the purpose of their subsequent scattering on non-consecrated ground.

He ruled that there is a 'presumption of the permanence of Christian burial' and said: "At some point after Mr Thacker's remains were interred his widow changed her mind as to the appropriate form of disposal of those remains. That change of mind is not an exceptional circumstance."

The couple met during the war when Mr Thacker, from Rugeley, was working in Northumberland.

They married in 1947 and were married for 30 years until Mr Thacker passed away suddenly aged just 55.

Mrs Hinksman, 62, from Rickerscote Road, said she was disappointed with the outcome but would not appeal.

"We have very reluctantly resigned ourselves to the fact that mum's final wishes have been refused.

"It is very upsetting that someone has taken that wish away from me and my mother.

"My father died suddenly at a young age and he hadn't made any specific wishes, it wasn't thought of then so we just did what was best during a difficult time but he would have wanted them to be together."

The family have since made arrangements to bury Mrs Thacker's ashes alongside her husband.

"I couldn't scatter mum without dad. They have to be together one way or another and this is our only option now.

"If we thought we had a chance we would appeal and the costs wouldn't come into it but we would have a real fight on our hands against the church. We would be banging our head against a brick wall and have paid a lot of money just to get this far." she said.