THE mother of jet-ski accident victim Faye Grundy is distraught after her gravestone was banned - because it was made from the wrong kind of stone.

Mandy Jones and her family have always wanted to place a heart-shaped memorial of white marble at Faye's grave in Benson. But they have been refused permission as it would breach churchyard guidelines.

Faye, 17, died in a horrific accident on Queenford Lake, near Berinsfield, in August after being thrown from a jet-ski into the path of a speedboat.

Church rules state headstones must be made from a local stone, not the Italian marble which the family planned for the grave in the New Churchyard. Mrs Jones, of Crown Lane, Benson, said: "The stone seemed appropriate. She was a lively, vibrant girl and this headstone seemd to say it all. She was an individual and I wanted her to have an individual head- stone."

She added: "Considering there are lots of different headstones down there, it seems unfair that this will not go through."

Faye, who would have been 18 in August, is buried in the churchyard opposite St Helen's Church, where 1,000 people attended her funeral.

The vicar, the Rev Andrew Hawken, said strict rules governed churchyards in the Oxford Diocese and the family's planned stone "departs quite considerably" from them. He added: "The thrust of the rules is that headstones are generally made from local, natural stone. Italian white marble is obviously not a local, natural stone.

"We have proper directives and we have to try to achieve them to make sure things are in keeping with the local area.

"I have suggested alternative ways but Mrs Jones has chosen not to pursue them."

He added that he had passed the matter on to the Diocese.

Mrs Jones and her husband Anthony have raised hundreds of pounds for a memorial shelter on the village's recreation ground, and her friends have planted a tree by the Thames.

The lake itself is to be made safer for water sports with measures including splitting it into three sections.

In March, the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to bring criminal charges against Faye's uncle, Tony Gee, who was driving the jet-ski.

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