KEY POINTS:
The Ministry of Health has confirmed it has issued an exhumation order for the body of a Carterton woman, while the feud is set to continue in the High Court at Wellington tomorrow.
Tina Marshall McMenamin, a 25-year-old mother of two, died in Masterton Hospital last Monday of a suspected drug overdose.
Her father, Eugene McMenamin, took his daughter's coffin from a Lower Hutt funeral home on Tuesday night against the wishes of her maternal family.
Ms McMenamin was buried on private land near Ruatoria, on the East Coast, on Wednesday.
Her maternal family, her fiance Darryl Cox, and his family, say they are intent on bringing her body back while the McMenamins have said they will fight any court orders.
A ministry spokesman said a licence ordering the exhumation and return of the body to the funeral home in Lower Hutt was issued on Friday.
"It has been signed and it is legally applicable," he said.
"It is now up to the person the licence was issued to, to decide what to do next."
The ministry had been given a court instruction to issue the licence after a court order to stop the burial arrived too late, he said.
Ruatoria police Sergeant Hone Herewini said the ministry had told police the order had been issued and it was now a case of "wait and see" when it would arrive.
It was not expected police would be part of the exhumation, other than to be there in a peacekeeping capacity, Mr Herewini said.
A civil case involving Mr Cox and the McMenamins is set down in chambers in the High Court at Wellington tomorrow morning, before Justice Ronald Young.
- NZPA
