Radio New Zealand - Te Reo Irirangi o Aotearoa

Takamore whanau rolls over on exhumation

Updated at 7:33 am on 23 January 2013

A lawyer representing the family members who took the body of James Takamore from his wife and children says the whanau has accepted the Supreme Court's ruling to allow his partner to exhume his body.

The Supreme Court decided last year, after a five-year legal battle, that Mr Takamore's wife Denise Clarke can bury him where she chooses.

James Takamore died in 2007 and was taken back to the Bay of Plenty for burial by his Tuhoe family.

Since then, Ms Clarke's lawyer Gary Knight says he's entered into positive dialogue with the husband's whanau.

The lawyer for the Tuhoe Takamore family, Moana Tuwhare, says the immediate and extended whanau have started talks about how the disinterment process should take place so that Ms Clarke knows the Maori protocols about how to remove his body.

Ms Tuwhare says the whanau has accepted Ms Clarke has the authority of the courts, and the extended family has started talking to a tohunga or Maori cultural expert about tikanga or Maori protocols regarding exhuming a body.

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