Widow heartbroken after being told she cannot move husband's ashes closer to her home

Beryl Osborne, 66, from Hednesford, had pleaded with the Chancellor of the Diocese of Lichfield, Stephen Eyre QC.

But he refused her request to exhume her late husband Terry Osborne's ashes, buried at St Gabriel's church in Fullbrook, Walsall.

Mrs Osborne wanted them moved to Our Lady of Lourdes in Uxbridge Street so she could guarantee a burial spot next to his.

In turning down the application, Mr Eyre QC told the former medical receptionist: "It is not open to the court to authorise an exhumation and reinternment simply in order to make it easier for the bereaved to visit the grave of the deceased."

Retired decorator Mr Osborne died in a car crash in July 2012 aged 67, two years after being diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. The couple had been regular worshippers at the church since 2006, where Mr Osborne was a church warden and Mrs Osborne's parents are buried.

She said: "A few years earlier we had booked and paid for a burial plot at the church."

The couple had been drawn towards Roman Catholicism in the years before Mr Osborne's death and they began spending less time at St Gabriel's. "It dawned on me a few months after Terry's death that I should double check that my burial spot was still fixed and I was told that there was no guarantee even though I'd paid for it years earlier" said grandmother-of-ten Mrs Osborne. "I was quite shocked by that and it was one of the reasons I wanted Terry's ashes moved to a local Roman Catholic church closer to Hednesford."

Moving the ashes to Our Lady of Lourdes church would have also put them within walking distance of Mrs Osborne's home saving her a 35-mile-round trip to go to St Gabriel's. Her application was backed by her four children, the Parochial Church Council of St Gabriel's and the parish priest at Our Lady of Lourdes. But despite that, the Chancellor turned the application down, saying in a letter: "It must always be exceptional for exhumation to be allowed and the Consistory Court must determine whether there are any special circumstances justifying the taking of that exceptional course."

The diocese says what constitutes an exceptional circumstance is taken on a case by case basis and there are no set guidelines. However one example that is widely accepted as an exceptional reason is if a mistake has occurred during burial e.g. a person has been buried in the wrong spot.

The chancellor said: "The reason why Mrs Osborne seeks exhumation and reinterment of those remains is to move them to a location at which it will be easier for her to visit her husband's grave.

"That is not an exceptional circumstance capable of justifying exhumation. Accordingly, the petition must be refused." The diocese did not make any further comment.