A High Court judge has intervened in a distressing family dispute, ordering the burial of a 95-year-old man whose body has remained in an undertaker’s mortuary for almost five months due to a disagreement between his sons.
Michael Godwin died in a Leeds hospital in November 2025, having returned to the UK for a holiday in August.
His remains have since been partially embalmed and held in a mortuary as two of his three sons, William and Jason Godwin, clashed over whether he should be cremated or buried.
Born in Surbiton, south London, in 1929, Mr Godwin had an "impressive career" in lift engineering and had lived in the south of France for more than 30 years.
He had previously expressed a wish to be interred in France.
The protracted dispute saw William Godwin seek a High Court declaration earlier this month, asking a judge to affirm his "lawful authority to arrange and instruct" his father’s cremation, and that Jason had "no lawful authority to prevent or interfere" with it.
Jason, conversely, wished for his father to be buried in Hargeville, near Paris, in line with a homemade will written in 2003, which stated a desire for interment in the hometown of his then-partner.
William, however, favoured cremation, saying the family had "no connection" to the French cemetery.
In a ruling delivered on Wednesday, Judge Jonathan Klein mandated that Michael Godwin be buried in England, in accordance with a Church of England funeral.
The judge further stipulated that William "must extend an invitation" to his brother.
Judge Klein noted that Michael, a member of the Church of England, had expressed a "consistent wish" to be buried.
He also said that repatriating the body to France could cause "significant delay".
The judge underscored the lack of family ties to Hargeville, saying that none of the Godwin family "has ever had any other connection with Hargeville" and that it was "unlikely that anyone will visit Mr Godwin’s grave if he is buried there".
He added that a French funeral "will lose some of its meaning or value if none of the likely mourners can speak French".
The judge said that the prolonged delay in arranging the funeral meant that Mr Godwin’s body "will have decomposed in the more than five months since his death" and, "distressingly, it may be in a state of putrefaction".
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