The High Court has allowed a girl’s half-sister to take custody of her body and arrange her wake, funeral and burial, after a dispute with the girl’s parents over where she should be laid to rest.
In a judgment delivered on 27 April 2023, Ms Justice Stack found that special circumstances justified a grant of letters of administration to the half-sister under section 27(4) of the Succession Act 1965. The order was limited to funeral and burial arrangements, including the erection of a headstone. It did not give the half-sister general authority over the estate.
The deceased, identified in the judgment only as X.Y., was a schoolgirl who had been in care since about 18 months old. She and her older sister, also a minor, had lived for most of their lives with their aunt and the aunt’s husband. The judgment says the deceased took her own life. Her parents’ 2019 application to end the Care Order was refused.
The half-sister sought authority on behalf of herself and other family members, including the older sister and the aunt and her husband. They wanted the girl buried in the town where she had lived most of her life, so friends and community members could attend and her sister could visit her grave. The parents wanted her buried in the town where they lived, near the graves of her maternal and paternal grandparents.
The parents had priority under the court rules to seek administration of the estate. But Justice Stack said the statutory power allowed the court to appoint another person where special circumstances made it necessary or expedient. As both sides were willing and able to pay for the funeral, necessity was not in issue; the question was whether appointing the half-sister was expedient.
The judge gave considerable weight to the older sister’s strong wish for the burial to take place locally, where they had lived together. She also considered that the deceased had not lived with either parent since she was very young, while acknowledging the father’s deep grief and the family’s shared loss. The judgment records that the parents would be included in the funeral arrangements and invited to design the headstone.
The court discharged an interim injunction that had prevented the hospital from releasing the body and directed the hospital to release it to the half-sister. Justice Stack said the court identifies who is entitled to make arrangements; it does not make those arrangements itself. She described applications of this kind as rare and said the ordinary priority rules should generally provide clarity.