Unauthorised ashes scatterings on purchased grave spaces where do we stand?

On the 29th of April this year, during a series of regular ICCM webinars facilitated by Plotbox, ICCM Officers addressed some of the questions that cemetery and crematorium staff had reported encountering over the preceding few months. ICCM Officers answer many questions every day, but the ones chosen for the webinar required particularly sensitive handling.

One question prompted such a response that a delegate asked if some follow-up advice could appear in the next Journal to explain the options for addressing the problem. The problem in question, is what to do when there has been an unauthorised scattering of ashes on or over a grave space where the exclusive right of burial exists.

From our own first-hand experiences as former cemetery and crematorium managers, in addition to the scenarios described by attendees, this appears to remain a common issue where persons will scatter ashes on purchased grave spaces without having sought the relevant permissions from the authority, or possibly also the grave owner beforehand.

To understand what is legally permitted, the Local Authorities' Cemeteries Order 1977 (as amended), offers in Schedule 2, Part 1 that:

‘No burial shall take place, no cremated human remains shall be scattered and no tombstone or other memorial shall be placed in a cemetery, and no additional inscription shall be made on a tombstone or other memorial, without the permission of the officer appointed for that purpose by the burial authority.’

Therefore, the Local Authority should receive an application or request for any scattering, including specifically those which take place over a grave where the exclusive right of burial exists. This will allow cemetery staff to:

• ensure that the grave owner is making the request, • make the relevant entry in the burial and grave registers, • charge any relevant fees for the organisation of the scattering service, • where possible, provide a member of staff to be in attendance.

Should this not have happened, then this can pose a number of issues with regard to the points above that won’t have now taken place.

Assuming that we now find ourselves in the above position, with an unauthorised scattering of ashes on a purchased grave, when answering the following questions, we can find that there are several options available to us:

• Could we immediately, legally, remove the ashes or do we need to apply for a Ministry of Justice Licence or a Bishop’s Faculty beforehand (as with any other exhumation), to resolve the issue? As the ashes aren’t buried or interred, they won’t be classed as such and therefore won’t require an exhumation licence or faculty in order for them to be removed. In doing so, this would then pose a further question of what to do with the ashes next.

• Should we inform anyone that there has been a scattering of ashes on a grave space that may be unlawful? We would always suggest that the most important person/s to be made aware at this stage is the grave owner. It has been found many times that the grave owner themselves have had no prior knowledge of the scattering taking place, yet similarly, there have been equal instances where the grave owner was aware of the scattering, yet completely unaware of the process that needed to be followed in order to do so.

• What could we do if the grave owner is aware of the scattering taking place? With sensitive discussion, should the grave owner/s wish the ashes to stay in place, then a retrospective entry could be made in the grave register which would complete any missing information of who the scattering relates to and the date that it occurred. Should the grave owner be unable to identify the person who has been scattered and also want the ashes removed, then these could be gathered by the authority as much as they reasonably can, and potentially buried within an unconsecrated, public grave and recorded as an ‘unknown person’ bearing all details of the situation in the burial register. If someone comes forward at a later date, there is then a record of the initial findings, and a Ministry of Justice licence application could be made in order to facilitate their retrieval.