[1] In 1883, eccentric Welshman William Price fathered a child with his housekeeper nearly sixty years his junior, a son named Iesu Grist (Jesus Christ), who was born to him in his eighties.

It could not be built within two hundred yards of any dwelling house without the written consent of the owner, lessee and occupier, and the act was not to be interpreted to "authorise the burial authority or any person to create or permit a nuisance".

Any person found guilty of wilfully making any false representations in order to procure the burning of human remains would be liable to imprisonment with or without hard labour for up to two years; and any person found guilty of attempting to conceal an offence by attempting to procure the burning of human remains would be liable to imprisonment with or without hard labour for up to five years.

The last open air pyre was believed to have occurred in 1934, when the British Government gave special permission to Nepal's ambassador to cremate his wife outdoors in Surrey.

[3][4][5][6][7] Ghai, through his multi-faith Newcastle based charity the Anglo-Asian Friendship Society, had been campaigning for open air funerals for people of any faith, arguing there was significant demand from the increasingly aging British Hindu and Sikh communities who, due to the Act, often flew bodies of their relatives abroad for cremation.

In July 2006, believing the law did not prohibit pyres, Ghai organised the open air cremation of Rajpal Mehat, an Indian-born Sikh illegal immigrant who was found drowned in a London canal.

Subsequent delays in identification meant the body was not fit to be repatriated, and Mehat's relatives asked Ghai to organise the ceremony in accordance with their beliefs.

The British Government, through the Department for Constitutional Affairs (which in 2007 became the Ministry of Justice), backed the council's decision and took an opposition stance during the review, on the basis that open air cremations would offend public decency; that the articles of the human rights were properly limited by the act due to the wider societal implications of pyres; and latterly, due to environmental concerns arising from the practice of burning materials such as mercury fillings.