A Muslim man has taken his local council to the High Court after complaining that their burial rules are infringing on his human rights.

Atta Ul-Haq, a practising Barelvi Muslim, wants to erect a four inch marble edging around his father’s grave to stop people walking across it, an act he described as “deeply offensive” and prohibited by his religion.

His father, Hafiz Qadri, died in 2015 and is buried in Streetly Cemetery in Walsall, West Midlands.

However, in a row that has been rumbling on for three years, Walsall Council bosses have refused his request because grave edges breach their cemetery regulations.

They only permit the "mounding of graves", which is the method commonly adopted by Muslims to prevent people from walking on graves, the council have said.

According to Mr Ul-Haq, the policy at Streetly Cemetery - and two others in the borough - breaches his human right to exercise religion enshrined in Article 9 of the European Convention on Human Rights.