‘Gut-wrenching’ battle after stillborn daughter’s remains exhumed

A Queensland father has lost his stillborn daughter twice – the second time when she was “ripped out of the ground” by his estranged wife. WATCH INTERVIEW

A north Queensland father whose daughter was stillborn is demanding justice after the baby’s remains were secretly exhumed by his wife amid a bitter split.

Arthur Hollingsworth, 80, who regularly visited the grave of daughter Dian following her death in 1965, says he now has nowhere to grieve, with the girl’s bones removed from Ayr Cemetery and allegedly kept in a glass jar in the home of her 84-year-old mother.

The bizarre ordeal – for which Burdekin Shire Council was forced to apologise after it failed to check “deliberately false” representations by Christina Janet Hollingsworth in her exhumation application – has devastated Mr Hollingsworth.

Five years after Dian’s bones were dug up, on April 26, 2016, the shattered father is still fighting to have them returned to the ground “so she can rest in peace”.

“Losing Dian the first time was a terrible thing; you never get over it,” said the former cattle station manager, of Charters Towers.

“To lose her again, 51 and a half years later when she was ripped out of her ground, that’s gut-wrenching.”

Mr Hollingsworth was horrified to discover in June 2017 – within days of divorcing his wife of 54 years – that their firstborn’s grave and headstone were gone.

“All that remained was a patch of red dirt, with a few grass shoots; I was in disbelief.”

He said he didn’t know why Mrs Hollingsworth – with whom he had three other children – had Dian’s remains exhumed but believed it was “payback” for their break-up.

A damning trail of emails, letters and documents, including many obtained by Mr Hollingsworth under the Right to Information Act, confirms Dian should not have been exhumed without his consent.

Arthur Hollingsworth has been battling to have his stillborn daughter’s body returned to her grave.

Local government laws, which normally regulate Queensland exhumations, state any application to disturb human remains in a cemetery must be accompanied by “evidence of the wishes of the deceased and the relatives of the deceased”.

Mrs Hollingsworth’s handwritten application in March 2016 to council failed to mention her husband, who moved out of the family home the previous year.

But an email from senior Burdekin council staffer Wayne Saldumbide to colleague Dan Mulcahy said Mrs Hollingsworth “requested the exhumation of her stillborn daughter on the claim that the father was in a (nursing) home and the remains were being repatriated for his benefit”.

Mrs Hollingsworth also said her estranged husband suffered from dementia, according to Neville Boyle, of Burdekin Funerals, which performed the $203 exhumation with council.

“She came and saw me and said he had dementia,” Mr Boyle told The Courier-Mail.

“We believed her because why would you make this stuff up?”

Mr Hollingsworth said he was “disgusted”.

“I don’t have dementia and have never lived in a nursing home,” he said.

“For council to approve the application without the proper documentation is a travesty.

“Police told me Dian’s bones were in a glass jar on my ex-wife’s mantelpiece; I want them back where they belong, in a cemetery.”

Dian was stillborn at 40 weeks on September 14, 1965, in Ayr Hospital and buried the next day.

Mrs Hollingsworth, who moved into Dalrymple Villa aged care facility in Charters Towers this year after a fall, said she and Mr Hollingsworth discussed exhuming Dian’s body when they were still a couple.

Arthur and Christina Hollingsworth‘s wedding photo

“We used to go and visit Dian in Ayr but it is too far so wanted her moved to the ‘Towers cemetery,” she said.

“When he left me, he stopped talking to me so I went ahead and did it all on my own.”

Mrs Hollingsworth admitted attending the exhumation and taking away Dian’s remains in a glass jar but refused to say where they were now.

“Too bad if he doesn’t know where she is; he’s had his chances, and I’m not going to tell him.

“I want to keep her with me; she’s quite safe really”.

She said claims she said Mr Hollingsworth had dementia and was in a nursing home were “lies”.

When asked why she had not reinterred Dian’s remains in Charters Towers Cemetery, Mrs Hollingsworth said she did not know.

On February 5 this year, Mr Hollingsworth wrote to Deputy Premier Steven Miles asking for help to bury Dian because her remains were “obtained by fraud and deceit and it is not customary to have human remains in your house”.

He did not receive a response.

On March 30, a representative for Police Minister Mark Ryan wrote to Mr Hollingsworth to advise “all aspects of this case have been investigated”, and if he wished to discuss the matter further to contact Charters Towers police.

“I have been given the run around for years, officials passing the buck,” Mr Hollingsworth said.

“Meanwhile, I have no access to Dian, who rested for decades under the same shady tree in Ayr.”

In other correspondence seen by The Courier-Mail, Mr Hollingsworth contacted Minister Ryan in October 2018, requesting the police commissioner investigate “the act of obtaining property (his daughter’s remains) dishonestly”.

Christina Hollingsworth’s letter requesting the exhumation

The Minister’s office replied the Queensland Police Service had investigated but found no criminal offences.

In June 2018, Mr Hollingsworth contacted local Member for Traeger Robbie Katter, whose office lodged a complaint with the Queensland Ombudsman.

The following month, assistant ombudsman Craig Allen wrote to Mr Hollingsworth advising a its investigation found “the council officer who decided the application did not check to ensure the application material included evidence as to the wishes of the relatives of the deceased (particularly you as the father) as required by section 3 (6) of its Subordinate Local Law No 1.13”.

The council officer “trusted that the intentions of Mrs Hollingsworth were in the interests of all parties and did not anticipate or contemplate, given the circumstances, that her representations were deliberately false”, Mr Allen wrote.

“The officer’s trust was unfortunately misplaced.”

Closing its investigation, Mr Allen said council had agreed to “strengthen its evidentiary requirements and associated procedures” and if Mr Hollingsworth wished to pursue Dian’s remains being reinterred he could obtain his own legal advice.

Mr Hollingsworth, who said he didn’t have money for legal action, then received a letter of apology from Burdekin Shire Council.

Director of corporate and community services Nick O’Connor said council’s actions “were honourable and I apologise for any undue angst this matter has caused”.

“All of this is cold comfort,” Mr Hollingsworth said.

“The system has failed me, and failed Dian. I have always grieved for the life she never had.

“When you’re having a bit of a low, you go back through the corridors of your life, and she’s always there.”

Email Kylie Lang

A response to Arthur Hollingsworth’s request for information