Coronial law

Tim Suter & Sophie Cartwright KC look at the measures available to support vulnerable witnesses

A variety of measures are available to assist in the treatment of vulnerable witnesses and parties in the coronial jurisdiction, Tim Suter, partner, Fieldfisher, and Sophie Cartwright KC, Deans Court Chambers, write in this week’s NLJ. Suter and Cartwright suggest the coronial jurisdiction consider best practice from the civil, family and criminal jurisdiction

The number of deaths in state detention rose 3% in 2021 on the previous year (580 compared to 562), with a 17% rise in deaths in prison custody, ‘driven by deaths related to COVID-19, which peaked in 2021 Q1’, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has revealed

"Among its strengths are the pithy chapters on particular types of inquest—from mental health, clinical and prison deaths to less frequently explored issues of product related death and military inquests"

The Justice Committee has called for fundamental reforms to Coroners Courts, including legal ‘equality of arms’.

The Supreme Court has lowered the appropriate standard in inquest proceedings to the balance of probabilities. Previously, a criminal standard has been applied for unlawful killing

The Justice Committee has launched an inquiry into the Coroner Service and whether enough improvements have been made since reforms were introduced by the Coroners and Justice Act 2009

Not enough has been done to improve the Coroner Service since reforms were introduced in 2009, a parliamentary committee has said

Coroners are experiencing difficulties when assessing which COVID-19 deaths to investigate, barrister David Regan has warned

The investigation of many individual COVID-19 deaths is likely to give rise to significant controversy, says David Regan