Council tells heartbroken family to 'clean up' gravesite of murder victim

The grieving family of a murder victim has been ordered to remove ornaments and other memorabilia from her gravesite under a cemetery bylaw, because they were deemed "hazardous".

The New Zealand cemetery announced it would be taking away the trinkets if they were not arranged in compliance with the cemetery-approved restrictions.

A spokesperson for the Prebbleton Cemetery, in the Selwyn District, on the east coast of the South Island, said some objects had been left on the lawn beside some of the graves, creating a safety hazard and making it difficult for groundskeepers to maintain the memorial park.

The bylaw restricts items to be placed on the grave beams surrounding the burial plots, or on the beams where the headstone sits – not on the grass in front of the headstone, the Selwyn Times reported.

"The district council is in the process of contacting extended family to inform them the adornments do not comply with the cemetery bylaw,” a council spokesman said.

“People need to rearrange the adornments or the items will be removed.”

In an attempt to reach out to the next of kin whose details were not known, the council published a list of people buried at Prebbleton Cemetery to come and remove their ornaments.

One of the names on the list was Lisa Hurrell, a woman who was beaten and stabbed to death by her ex-partner 30 years ago.

The council contacted the victim’s family requesting the bottle and beer cans surrounding her grave be removed, but confirmed the other ornaments would not be taken away.

Before the cemetery bylaw was changed in 2011 to tighten up the memorabilia left by families, the Hurrell family received special permission to have a concrete edging built around Lisa’s burial plot, to allow for additional ornaments and flowers.

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Her family told the Selwyn Times they have removed the additional beer cans and were relieved they didn’t have to take away all the ornaments.

The district council confirmed other families seeking to have a concrete guard added to gravesite would be considered only on a case-by-case basis.

"Permission will not be given to graves in newer areas of the cemeteries," a district council spokesman told the newspaper, saying the decision was because the memorial park was moving towards 'lawn cemeteries' where the beams are level with the grass.