Royal engraver and wife who buried father in back garden sue police for arresting them and digging up the body
A royal engraver who buried his father in the back garden after being instructed to do so before his death is suing police after they arrested him and dug up the body.
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Pierre Frenette, 60, and his wife Donna have accused officers of wrongly arresting them following the death of 80-year-old Peter Frenette in 2023.
Peter passed away after being diagnosed with prostate cancer in September that year and, before his death requested, his son bury him in his garden alongside his father.
But according to Pierre and Donna, it took just two days for armed police to raid the house, arresting them and digging up Peter’s body.
It took police six weeks to return the cadaver to the grieving couple.
The pair allege they were arrested on suspicion of concealing a body and sat in cells for 36 hours.
Pierre and Donna argue they committed no crimes and registered the death within the legal five-day limit.
Chief constable of Cambridgeshire Constabulary and three of its officers are facing legal action, they say.
Pierre, a former engraver of guns for the late Queen, claims it was his father’s dying wish to be buried in the garden.
Speaking to the Times, Donna said they took Peter’s body after being told there is “nothing more to do.”
Peter had been given a “small dose” of morphine shortly before his death after doctors determined his death was “imminent.”
“Because of my job as a paramedic I knew we had five days to register the death,” Donna told the Times
“It was not a sudden death.”'
In response to the allegations, Police said: “'Sylvia stated that Peter Frenette had died, but there was no record of that death being registered.
“Either Peter was alive, in which case he would have been in a great deal of pain and needed assistance, or he had died but the same had not been registered as the law required.”