Police called to Thatcham cemetery after bones found in topsoil

Services manager at Thatcham Town Council, Mel Alexander, said that she was called to the cemetery in London Road on Saturday night after a member of the public spotted pieces of bone on a pile of top soil and called the police.
Mrs Alexander said that she had spoken to the grave digger, who told her that the soil had been brought in from a very old grave from a churchyard in Oxfordshire a few weeks ago but an animal had most likely disturbed the pile and brought the three small pieces to light.
She said that nothing untoward had happened at the cemetery as the process of using soil from old graves was quite normal.
Current rules allow for graves to be reused where rights of burial have expired, usually between 50 and 100 years.
Mrs Alexander added that any remains were usually sieved out of the soil and returned to the grave but on this occasion some had slipped through. She said that the top soil would be removed from the cemetery this week.
Following the publication of the story in this week's

the man who discovered the bones said that he had called the police after finding vertebrae; pieces of rib bone and a jaw bone complete with teeth.
He said that he had discovered the remains while walking through the cemetery with his son and that he was surprised by Mrs Alexander's comments that only three small pieces of bone had been found.