Spared jail, the daughter who gave dad a pagan burial in woods
A DAUGhTeR who gave her father an illegal pagan burial in woodland has been handed a suspended prison sentence.
eirys Brett, 31, along with her partner Mark Watson, 46, was carrying out the wishes of Donald Brett, who had asked to be buried near the farmhouse where he had lived for around 25 years.
But a court heard that, although the interment was carried out in a ‘sense of love and loyalty’, the pair failed to use land where burials are allowed or register the death. Sentencing them, Recorder Gregg Bull, QC, said: ‘You could have achieved the same objective by following the law.’
Mr Brett had asked to be buried in a non-Christian style near his rented home in rural Wales.
Tom Scapens, prosecuting, said he was last seen alive in June 2019 but his body was not discovered until more than two years later. he was believed to be 78 or recently turned 79 when he died. Brett and Watson were arrested after Mr Brett’s landlord reported him missing. The couple said he had died from natural causes.
Merthyr Tydfil Crown Court heard that when Mr Brett was exhumed, his body was found to be wrapped in a hessian cotton blanket with twine wrapped in a ‘medieval burial’ pattern.
With the body were items including artistic supplies, poems and flowers. Cause of death was identified as a lung condition but Mr Brett was also suffering from prostate cancer.
Mr Scapens said the daughter and her partner ‘were extremely misguided, but it was not malicious’. he added: ‘Donald Brett was a non- conformist person in his approach to life. he was firm in expressing his wishes to the defendants.’
Nicholas Gedge, defending Brett, said: ‘This was something that happened out of loyalty and love. In the days leading up to his death Donald Brett was undoubtedly in extreme ill health and excruciating pain.
‘ They didn’t override his wishes and take him to hospital like they should have done but, again, they did not do this with malicious intent.’
Judge Bull sentenced the couple, of St harmon in Powys, to four-month suspended sentences over what he called ‘some sort of pagan funeral’. They admitted preventing a lawful and decent burial.
he added: ‘I will have to pass a sentence of imprisonment because the public requires that the dead are dealt with in a decent way.’
‘Extremely misguided’