Baby Buried In Shallow Grave On Top Of Another

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28980, 22 August 1959, Page 12

Baby Buried In Shallow Grave On Top Of Another

(Aeto Zealand Press Association)

DARGAVILLE, August 21. A funeral director had dug a shallow hole on top of a previous grave and had there buried the body of a dead baby wrapped in a sheet, said Senior DetectiveSergeant M. J. Ross in the Magistrate's Court at Dargaville yesterday. Before Mr J. R. Herd, S.M.. Joseph Arthur Taylor, undertaker (Mr K. McLeod), faced charges of opening a grave at the Mt. Wesley cemetery on May 30, 1959, without the authority of the trustee, the Dargaville Borough Council; of making an interment at the cemetery without authority; and of making an interment in a plot in which there had been a previous burial, again without authority. The charges were made under the Dargaville Borough bylaws. Plea of Guilty After legal argument on the validity of the by-laws, Taylor pleaded guilty to the charges. Mr McLeod said the facts were admitted. Mr Ross said Taylor was a funeral director and borough councillor in Dargaville.' In July last year he had buried a stillborn child in the Mt. Wesley cemetery. At the end of May this year a child had been born to the same parents. This child had lived for about two hours. Taylor had been asked by the father to conduct the burial and had been paid to do so. Taylor had taken the child from the hospital where it had been born and had buried the body, still wrapped in a sheet and not in a casket, in a shallow hole in the same plot where he had buried the stillborn child about a year previously Mr Ross said Taylor had dug this shallow hole, about 19 inches deep, himself. He had no authority from the Dargaville Borough Council to do so. The head of the body had been facing west and not east, as was usual. No-one was present u t " e J buria l, except Taylor, yet he had produced a certificate to the registrar of deaths showing that the father and mother were present at the burial. The burial had not been registered with the borough council. Noticed By Sexton It was not until the cemetery sexton noticed, some time later, that the original grave had been disturbed that tlxe matter had come to the notice of the authorities. Mr Ross said that, when interviewed. Taylor had admitted the burial. Mr McLeod said there was nothing sinister about the incident. It was owing to a number of circumstances. The burial took place on May 30, a Saturday The following Monday was a holiday and so the matter had been rather overlooked. Taylor had tried to get in touch with the sexton on the Saturday but without success. Th,e Magistrate reserved his decision until September 17 so that he could consider legal points on the validity of the bylaws. Mr Ross said Taylor, as a memu >2 f ,. the Bor ough Council, should have known the by-laws. He had been in business as the only undertaker in Dargaville for many years and had been

forwarded a copy of the bylaws. Mr McLeod claimed that the by-laws were pot valid, as the Mt. Wesley cemetery was outside the borough and the Borough Council was acting as trustee. It had a right to make rules and regulations but not by-laws to cover the cemetery. Mr Ross contended that the bylaws were valid and could be classed as rules and regulations under the Act. Mr McLeod and Mr Ross quoted authorities and various sections of the Cemetery and the Municipal Corporations Acts. These points of law were reserved.

The Magistrate ordered that the names of the parents of the child should not be published. Mr McLeod asked that the facts of the case should not be published. This was refused by the Magistrate, who said it could well be left to the press what part of the facts should be published and what part excluded.