A WOMAN’S dying wish for her ashes to be scattered in the Welsh hills has been fulfilled - 26 years after her death.

A judge has granted rare consent for her ashes to be exhumed from St Bartholomew’s church yard in the county as she was living in Naunton Beauchamp at the time of her death

Kathleen Etty-Leal had told her family she wanted them scattered on the Welsh hills, near to Powys where her ancestors came from.

The driving force behind her wishes not being observed was her daughter-in-law.

However, the marriage between one of Mrs Etty-Leal’s two sons and the daughter-in-law has now broken up.

And following that break-up Mrs Etty Leal’s daughter, Sarah Worboys made an impassioned plea to the Church of England’s Consistory Court to put things right.

As a result she has now won permission to at last carry out her mother’s wishes.

Charles Mynors, chancellor of the Diocese of Worcester, in his role as a judge of the Consistory Court, has ruled that although he considered it a “borderline” case he considered the circumstances were sufficiently exceptional for him to grant permission for exhumation and so pave the way for Mrs Etty-Leal’s wishes to be fulfilled.

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Chancellor Mynors said Mrs Etty-Leal’s ashes were buried at Naunton Beachamp “at the insistence” of her son’s then wife, even though Mrs Worboys had several times pointed out that it was a mistake to bury the ashes as her mother had “always wished them to be spread over her homeland, with her ancestors, in the Welsh hills.”

The Chancellor said nobody had been able to explain to him why the views of the daughter-in-law prevailed over those of Mrs Etty-Leal’s four children.

He said Mrs Worboys had told him: “Ever since the funeral I have wanted to right this wrong for my mother, but have been unable to do anything until recently, when my brother and sister-in-law were divorced, and I found my brother is in total agreement with me, as are our half-brother and sister.”