A grieving mother, Jo Corbett-Weeks, 42, was forced to remove the headstone for her 4-year-old son just 3 days after it was erected following a complaint that the headstone wasn’t “in keeping” with the rest of the cemetery. The headstone at issue, for Maximum James Corbett-Gardener, 2008-2013, was carved into the shape of a star bearing an inscription with the figure of a teddy bear crawling up over the back of it. The cause of the boy’s death was complications from epilepsy, and the headstone was placed on his birthday 3 years after his death, when he would have turned seven.
Three days later, due to a complaint filed with the Malvern Town Council, Worcestershire council chiefs took it down, without Jo Corbett-Weeks’s permission or awareness. The aggrieved mother is now demanding that the headstone, which cost her $4,580 to have made, be returned to its rightful place on her little boy’s grave. Responding to Ms. Corbett-Weeks’s demands, the town council replied that the headstone would never have been approved and the stonemason never permitted to set it in the first place had Ms. Corbett-Weeks filed the proper application with them for the headstone.
Max Corbett-Gardener’s grave is located in the adult section of the cemetery, in order that he could be close to his family. The council says they would have permitted a headstone in the shape of a star if it were in the children’s section. A spokesman for the Malvern Town Council said the reason the stone was removed so quickly was because it would have been harder to do so were it allowed to set longer. Jo Corbett-Weeks and the Malvern Town Council will be meeting to discuss alternatives to Max’s headstone design.
