Wayne Joselyn: Man who caused heartache after interfering with grave in Barnsley cemetery is jailed

One night in April last year, Wayne Joselyn dug into the grave shared by beloved husband and wife Kell and Maud Goodwin at Barnsley's Carlton Cemetery. They had laid together peacefully since 1984 when Maud died and was buried alongside Kell, who had died in 1982.

But on May 2, 2022, a member of the public visiting the cemetery to visit their own relative was horrified to discover the couple’s grave had been disturbed.

An investigation was launched and 43-year-old Joselyn was handed a 15 month custodial sentence to run consecutively to a jail term he is already serving for another offence. He was jailed yesterday after pleaded guilty to criminal damage and a further count of outraging public decency and common law.

When police officers secured the crime scene in the cemetery, an investigation commenced to discover whether any of the skeletal remains had been interfered with or, worse, removed.

Over the following 11 days a forensic anthropologist and archaeologist, with the assistance of body recovery and CSI teams, seized soil and evidence from the graveside and from within the grave itself.

It was discovered that Joselyn had dug into Maud’s coffin and experts spent days sieving through soil and piecing every fragment of bone back together to check everything was where it should have been.

As the soil was searched, a snood Joselyn had been wearing on the night he interfered with the grave was discovered, providing a crucial DNA profile.

Phone tracking located his mobile at the scene throughout the timeframe the incident is believed to have occurred between 28 and 29 April 2022, and enquiries found he ordered a taxi to a friend’s house using his real name, Wayne. At that home, he handed his friend his boots and clothes and asked them to burn them. The friend didn’t, and on May 9 they contacted officers to let them know what Joselyn had done and handed them the crucial evidence.

South Yorkshire Police said Joselyn “has never said why he did what he did that night”. In police interview, he only answered “no comment” to all questions put to him.

At court yesterday, his solicitor alluded to the fact Joselyn had heard a rumour of a grave at the cemetery containing money, which he was seeking to fund a drug addiction.

South Yorkshire Police said: “This remains a frustrating element to the case – the Goodwin family remain unclear as to why Kell and Maud’s grave was dug into.”

Detective Inspector Mark Cockayne said: “Joselyn had dug to between three and three-and-a-half feet and he had literally been into Maud’s coffin.

“There were a lot of nuances with this which we had never come across before, and a lot of people were involved from across the force as well as experts and partner organisations.

“And yet we still don’t really know why he did it. In essence we had to have another funeral for Maud because of what he did and reintern her into the grave with her husband.

“The sentencing will hopefully have brought about some closure for the family, who will hopefully now begin to start moving forward and putting this behind them.”