Reverend Richard Coles 'broke the law' by doing this with dead pets' ashes
Reverend Richard Coles has admitted to "breaking the law" by doing this with a dead pets' ashes.
Reverend Richard Coles “broke the law” by putting ashes of pets inside their owners’ coffins.
The now-retired vicar, who served at St Mary the Virgin in Finedon, Northamptonshire, from 2011 until 2022, secretly put the remains with a body when an undertaker was distracted.
Richard, 64, explained at the Hay Literary Festival: "It is illegal to bury a dog’s ashes with a body.
"The reason is that there are different jurisdictions over the disposal of remains. Human remains are one thing, and all other remains another thing.
"So I would quite often go to the undertaker - I can’t tell you this, I am breaking the law - with the dog’s ashes and say, ‘Have you screwed down Mrs Haversedge?’
“And they’d say, ‘Not yet’, and I’d say, ‘Look at that bird!’”
Defending his breach of the law, Richard argued: “There is a wideness to God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea, and it’s our job to live in accordance with that.”
His actions were similar to those of his predecessors, who allowed the unbaptised and those who died by suicide to be buried in the churchyard, amid a rule stating they must be laid to rest in a separate area.
But in 2015, the Church of England allowed full Christian funerals and burials for those who died by suicide and were not baptised.
Richard said: "I know that my predecessors didn’t really care. They would extend mercy, because there are no limits to God’s mercy."
In June 2025, the TV star - who shot to fame as a member of the 1980s pop band, The Communards - revealed he has a lifetime ban from Avis rent-a-car after he got "s***-" on “ecstasy and acid” in Ibiza, Spain.
Chatting on 37-year-old Rylan Clark’s How to Be in Love podcast, Richard explained: "It was really after the band [The Communards] reached its highest point and we were taking a break, which we are still on 35 years later.
"That was when sex and drugs and rock and roll came together for me and I took some time out and I went to Ibiza and I just was s-*** for many, many months.
"There was one summer I went, and I went with a bunch of people, and we all just took ecstasy and acid, oh, everything really. And I remember we got barred from Avis rent-a-car for life because we got through a lot of vehicles.
“Mavis from Avis, she was furious.”
Rylan had to check if he had heard what Richard had said correctly, and asked: “Stop! Got barred from Avis?”
The I'm A Celebrity...Get Me Out Of Here! 2025 campmate confirmed: “Yeah, for life.”
