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Police have been strongly criticised for refusing to intervene in the second body-snatching case this year.
Carterton woman Tina Marshall-McMenamin died from a suspected drug overdose at the weekend.
Her family claim the 25-year-old's father, Eugene McMenamin, took her body on Tuesday and buried her at Tikitiki on
the East Cape, whereas she wanted to be cremated in Lower Hutt.
Mr McMenamin took her body from the Harbour City Funeral Parlour in Lower Hutt for a "final ride".
But he and relatives escorted her body to her whanau's marae on the East Coast.
Ruatoria police served a High Court injunction on the family on Wednesday night, requiring them to return the body to the Lower Hutt funeral parlour.
But by then, Ms Marshall-McMenamin had been buried for several hours.
In August, the body of James Takamore was buried by extended family members in the eastern Bay of Plenty, despite his widow wanting him to be buried in Christchurch.
Yesterday, the Eastern district area commander, Inspector Waata Shepherd, said police could do little in the case of Ms Marshall-McMenamin without an exhumation order.
Mr Shepherd said police had received no further instruction in the case, despite reports of a High Court exhumation order being issued.
He could not comment on the legality of the urupa (place of burial), saying this was a matter for the Gisborne District Council.
"In terms of the legal process we have completed our requirements.
"We were asked to action the document [the injunction] and we did.
"But when the injunction was received the body was in the ground."
Asked why police did not act sooner, Mr Shepherd replied: "Under what law?
"There was a process for us to action in terms of the High Court injunction and that was the legal requirement."
But Funeral Directors Association spokesman Michael Hope said the law was clear on who was responsible for a body, yet police were not taking action.
He believed it was because they wanted to avoid bad publicity.
Mr Hope said the executor of an estate was responsible for a person's body, and if there was no will, the next of kin took charge.
Lawyer Adam Ross, from the law firm Chapman Tripp, said he also believed the law was clear in this area, and it was unlawful for someone to make off with a body.
"I am a little perplexed by the police's view that this is purely a civil matter and not potentially a criminal one," Mr Ross told Newstalk ZB.
"It's not hard to see that this is a highly emotionally charged family-type situation, and we know the police have declined to act in other occasions like this.
"I'm not sure that tradition is a good reason not to interfere, and if the police think that the law is unclear it seems to me obvious that we should sort this out, because this sort of thing shouldn't happen."
Gisborne Mayor Meng Foon said police had not contacted the district council about the potentially illegal burial of Ms Marshall-McMenamin "and I hope they don't".
He did not know if the case might fall under the council's jurisdiction, but said there were many traditional Maori cemeteries on the East Coast and it was possible Ms Marshall-McMenamin was interred in one.
James Takamore was buried at Kutarere, southwest of Opotiki, after his body was taken from Christchurch by his Bay of Plenty whanau against the wishes of partner Denise Clarke.
Eastern Bay of Plenty police said they would refuse to exhume him if asked to enforce an exhumation permit obtained by his partner because they did not want to be "the meat in the sandwich".
The director of the funeral company involved in the latest dispute, Simon Manning, said the two halves of Ms Marshall-McMenamin's family had clearly not got along.
They had met on Tuesday to discuss arrangements for a funeral, and it had been a tension-filled day.
The decision to let Mr McMenamin drive the body to the home of Melissa Marshall, his daughter's mother, was made late in the day.
He had left the Harbour City Funeral Home's Lower Hutt office around 10.30pm.
"It's not at all unusual for Maori families to have the bodies of their loved ones at home before a funeral," Mr Manning said. "This is something we do every day."
But Mr McMenamin's actions were far from normal, Mr Manning said.
He said the law was clear that in cases where there was no will, the de facto husband - in this case Ms Marshall-McMenamin's fiance - should have the final say over what happened to a person's remains.
But a will was later found, in which Ms Marshall-McMenamin asked to be cremated, and gave all decision-making powers to her mother.
Mr Manning said that document superseded any other family member's wishes.
