A wedding in a race against time
A fifteen-day waiting period was too long: how a couple in a hospice formed Britain's first civil partnership.
On 5 December 2005, the Civil Partnership Act came into force in the United Kingdom. For the first time, same-sex couples could have their relationship recognised by the state. On that Monday, however, they could only give notice of their intention. After that, a waiting period of fifteen days applied.
For Matthew Roche and Christopher Cramp, this period was too long. The two men had been a couple for more than seven years, and Roche was in a hospice in Worthing on the English south coast with terminal lung cancer. The law provided an exception for such cases: if doctors confirm that a partner is terminally ill, the waiting period is waived. Cramp went to the register office in Brighton. About two hours later, the partnership was formed at St Barnabas Hospice. Roche told the BBC that the day had been a mad scramble and that he had been determined to take this step.
Roche died shortly afterwards. The two are regarded as the first civil partners in the United Kingdom, even before the regular procedure had properly begun. At the same time, several couples had already been camping outside Brighton town hall to be the first to give notice. The first regular registrations followed two weeks later in Belfast, then in Scotland and in England and Wales. There, on 21 December, Elton John and David Furnish also formed their partnership, amid a huge media frenzy.
Civil partnership gave same-sex couples largely the same rights as married couples, for example in inheritance, tax and pensions. But it did not carry the name of marriage. Only in 2014 did England and Wales open marriage, and many couples later converted their partnerships. For Matthew Roche, this option came too late. His story shows what a law can mean when there is hardly any time left.