Family clashes over final rites

JOHN KIRK-ANDERSON

FAMILY FEUD: Hudson Hill with his daughter, Georgia, and a photo of Georgia as a baby with her late mother, Kelly Meester, who died of breast cancer.

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A dispute over the funeral arrangements for cancer victim Kelly Meester has caused an ugly split in her Christchurch family and involved the coroner and police.

Meester, 45, died last Friday after a year battling breast cancer with herbal remedies and alternative medicine.

Her partner, Hudson Hill, wants to have her buried, while Meester's sister, Jackie Sheehan, and her half-brother, Dana Bradley, want her cremated. Hill and Meester had a daughter, Georgia, now 6.

Meester's funeral has been delayed as both sides seek legal advice. Police have also been contacted, and the coroner is considering whether an autopsy should be carried out.

Meester made a will in 1999 in which she asked to be cremated, but Hill says his partner made it clear two weeks before she died that she wished to be buried. Sheehan and Bradley are the executors and trustees of the will.

"She made the will when she didn't have a daughter or the love we had. She wanted somewhere for Georgia and me to go to grieve her and remember her," Hill said.

Meester's family has asked Hill, in a lawyer's letter, to give up Meester's rings and jewellery, cellphones, laptop computer and her 1956 Ford Thunderbird.

Sheehan, who has a half-interest in Meester's Addington home, also wants Hill out of the house.

Meester's body is being held by funeral directors Lamb & Hayward, which did not want to comment yesterday.

Sheehan, a life coach with her own radio programme on Plains FM, said her sister had told friends over the past few months she wanted to be cremated.

Sheehan said Hill had "a rocky relationship" with her sister. She wanted to delay the funeral until her sister's property was secure.

Bradley said cremation was traditional in the family.

"Unfortunately, my sister's wish is to be cremated and that's clear in her will, and it also has been the tradition in her family, with ashes being scattered around the place."

He did not believe his sister had changed her mind. He said Hill and his sister had "never lived together for any length of time".

His sister's ashes would go to Victoria Park, which would be an ideal place to visit.

The law on the subject was considered in the Takamore case this year. The case involved the Bay of Plenty family of Jim Takamore removing his body from Christchurch for burial in the Bay town of Kutarere, against his widow's wishes, in 2007.

Justice Fogarty, in the High Court in Christchurch, ruled that a person named as an executor in a will had the right to possession of the body against all other persons and must decide how the burial is to be arranged.

An executor would take the wishes of the deceased, whether expressed in the will or otherwise known, and "will listen to the surviving spouse or partner, children and other relatives and where appropriate friends or confidants of the deceased, without being legally bound to carry out" their wishes.

The executor then makes what he or she considers to be the best and right decision, the judge said.