With the general election over there is a vital issue at stake – the desecration of the Cane Hill cemetery.

Up until now Mr Cameron has allowed and I fear will continue to allow, the Old School Tie principle to hinder dialogue with Dr Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, over the House of Bishops consenting to the desecration of the cemetery in 1981.

It has horrifying parallels with the death camps of the Holocaust, which is to say; the frenzied destruction and concealment of human remains.

This has been followed by persistent denial, until I revealed its existence in 2006, of the massive cinerary pit in Mitcham Road cemetery – known as “LOC1000 – CANE HILL REMAINS”.

For the past five years, I have placed a poppy wreath on the site on Remembrance Sunday, but last year, it was removed soon afterwards, apparently because the memorial card contained the word “Desecration”.

Lillian’s Law was a fine achievement for Gavin Barwell and the victim’s grieving family, but even more impressive would be a new Government which at last has the temerity to stand up to those in positions of power.

Dr Welby ought to visit the travesty of a memorial over the site in the cemetery.

While there, the Archbishop should recite the Commination for this dreadful deed, which was unwittingly sanctioned and ratified by monarch, church and state, in the passing of the Cane Hill Cemetery Act in 1980.

Let us hope that the new Government, will treat this as a matter of the greatest urgency.

It is an issue which, astoundingly, will cost almost nothing in terms of money: Rather, it requires a searching of the consciences of those in the institutions which permitted and facilitated this dreadful act and hid the alarming facts from parliament and the public.

ADRIAN FALKS
Founder of the No Poppies for Pauper Soldiers campaign