Amanda Jones, instructed by Axiom Stone Solicitors, was successful in representing the Claimants in their applications for interim injunctions to prevent the repatriation of their mother’s body to Tanzania.
An intricate and legally complex case, it was brought by 3 of the deceased’s surviving 5 children, against the Defendant, a fourth surviving child, leading to an emergency injunction being granted on the Claimants’ application on 4th August 2020 preventing the Defendant from repatriating the body to Tanzania the following day. The family was unable to agree whether the deceased should be buried in the UK or her body repatriated to Tanzania, her country of origin, so the deceased had remained unburied two months after her death.
At the return date hearing on 19th August, HHJ Cooke (sitting as a deputy High Court Judge in Birmingham) made a further interim order, appointing the First Claimant as administrator under the Senior Courts Act s.116 for the purposes of permitting him to arrange the dignified, decent burial of the deceased in the United Kingdom.
The case involved extensive factual conflict, including whether the deceased had been married in law to the father of her children, and whether that relationship had ended in 1993 or continued until 2020.
The Judge made his order on the basis sought by Miss Jones on behalf of the Claimants, namely that for this order, he proceeded on the basis that the deceased had been lawfully married to the father of the children in Tanzania, but that nonetheless the court should appoint the First Claimant child as administrator, and permit burial forthwith in the UK. The husband’s desire to bury the deceased in Tanzania, a country she had left in 1993 and never visited since, did not trump the deceased’s wishes to be buried in the UK, her close connection with a particular town in England, and the wishes of the majority of her children and grandchildren.
The Defendant’s position at the interim hearing was that a 4 day trial should be listed, experts instructed in document verification, capacity, and immigration issues. Miss Jones ensured that the court’s focus was not drawn away from the important issues, and that the case was not unnecessarily protracted or derailed. The Judge accepted Miss Jones’ submissions that a 4 day trial, costing hundreds of thousands of pounds in expert witness and legal fees, was disproportionate and unnecessary. He also accepted that delaying a dignified and respectful burial for many more months was wrong in law.