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The High Court has refused a request by a Christchurch woman to exhume the body of her former partner and cremate him so the ashes could taken back to the East Coast.
It also rejected her request for two taiaha and a tewhatewha that were kept at his parents' home.
Jamie Pooley died in 2011 aged 26 and was buried in Christchurch.
His de facto partner and mother of his three children, Cheyanne Pooley, said cremation was his wish and she wanted to take the ashes back to Rangitukia where his mother was from.
She wanted to hold the taonga so she could give them to the children when they had demonstrated the skills to use them.
Justice Gerald Nation said after hearing expert evidence on tikanga he was satisfied there had been no breach that justified the exhumation, and the deceased's parents had the ultimate authority on funeral arrangements.
The taonga were also held by his parents in trust, and it was up to them to decide when and how they should be distributed among his children.
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