Murdered man in wrong grave reinterred

The body of Daniel Hastelow, 26, was buried in a reserved grave at Walsall Wood churchyard in the West Midlands last November, after a vicar forgot to mark out the correct space.

The grave had been reserved by widowed parishioner Jean Best, who was granted a faculty – or official permission – by the church.

The exhumation, which began at 6am and took about two hours, was ordered by Judge Marten Coates, the Chancellor of the Diocese of Lichfield, in a hearing at Warwick Crown Court on April 6.

The case was taken to the Consistory Court following failed attempts to find a solution acceptable to both Mrs Best and Mr Hastelow's family.

A spokesman for the Diocese said Mr Hastelow's body was reinterred in a different grave in the churchyard, which was closed while the exhumation and reburial took place.

He said: "There wasn't any ceremony but it was a very quiet, solemn affair.

"Daniel's mother Susan Hastelow was present, as was the Archdeacon of Walsall, the Ven Chris Sims."

Richard Roberts, 36, from Merseyside, was found guilty last September of stabbing Mr Hastelow to death in Magaluf, Majorca, in 2008. Mr Hastelow had been working in the resort as a barman.

His burial in the churchyard followed a lengthy campaign by family members for his body to be exhumed from a cemetery in Spain and flown back to the UK.

The Diocese apologised to the Best and Hastelow families and said the mistake which led to the burial in the wrong grave was the fault of the church rather than anybody in the families.