The turf over Gladys Hammond's grave is patched and lumpy.

When it is cut open for a final time, her remains returned to their rightful spot next to a cherry tree, Rector Jenny Lister hopes her Yoxall parish graveyard will once again be place of peace.

But the scars left on the villagers won't mend as easily.

After six years of terror, residents still look over their shoulders half expecting to hear the shatter of glass behind them.

Rev Lister struggles to find the right words attaching Christian forgiveness to the actions of the four animal rights activists awaiting sentence.

"I think they are quite depraved," she said quietly. "I don't think they are mentally ill at all, I think they knew exactly what they were doing.

"I think they are quite evil to do something like that.

"I think it is for them to come to forgiveness in themselves. Whether other people could forgive them - it's an individual thing."

Rev Lister has been the priest-in-charge of Yoxall parish for ten-and-a-half years. Two weeks ago there was an Easter Egg hunt at 13th century St Peter's, while across the road at the Golden Cup a hog roast was held.

Driving in, the lanes are edged with hawthorn bushes and swaying, white-blossomed cherry trees. Lawns are manicured and there's not a shred of rubbish to be seen.

Rev Lister prides herself that the graveyard - which adjoins her back garden - is a place where people can go to snatch a few moments of tranquillity.

On the morning of Thursday October 7 2004 Rev Lister noticed an untidy mound of earth in the graveyard but thought nothing of it - just a stray thought that Keith the gravedigger didn't usually leave it like that.

After lunch a "sensible lady from the church" walked by and immediately knew something was wrong. She fetched Rev Lister.

"I saw the boards pulled from the top of the coffin and thrown on the ground, and shreds of coffin lead. As soon as I saw the name on the headstone, I knew what had happened. I had buried Gladys Hammond and I knew who her relatives were.

"It was total disbelief that anything could happen like that. I didn't look in; I didn't want to."

She rushed back to the vicarage to phone the police.

Within the hour cordons surrounded the graveyard and word of the desecration had spread round the village.

The parish's reaction was shock, and a feeling that the place and their own dead had been violated.

People with family members buried in the graveyard beat a path to her door.

For some the crime re-awoke the old pangs of bereavement.

"It is part of my work to be with people in their joy and sorrow," said Rev Lister. "It was just terrible. I couldn't sleep. People didn't use the graveyard to pass through any more.

"Somebody said to me, I know my relatives are alright, but it feels like burglars have been through the house."

At the end of the week she held a special service and later in the year the graveyard was re-dedicated. Police stepped up patrols at the graveyard through the night.

Everyone in Yoxall knew somebody who had been targeted because of their business with the Halls.

Yoxall itself attained a ghoulish notoriety, regularly flooded by media.

"It got a name and people were angry about that," said Rev Lister. "One man was having his car serviced and somebody standing behind him said, 'Yoxall? You won't want to live there now, will you?' He said 'I jolly well will'. "I'm so cross at this business of 'oh, Yoxall'".

The discovery of Mrs Hammond's remains was "an answer to a prayer", she said.

"We believe that Mrs Hammond is at peace; but I pray that this will begin to bring healing to her family who have suffered so much."

The air of normality, which settled on the village after the arrests, is still fragile.

"I think there will be recovery eventually but there was a huge amount of anger against the people who did this," said Rev Lister.